UC-NRLF 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


The  World  of  Suckers 


THE  WORLD 

OF 
SUCKERS 


by 
LIONEL  JOSAPHARE 

Author  of  "The  Man  Who  Wanted  a  Bungalow.") 


THE.    DANNER    PUBLISHING    CO. 

1508  POLK  ST.,  SAN  FRANCISCO 

1909 


Copyright  1 909  by 
LIONEL    J05APHARE 


Preface 


Men  judge  their  acts  by  a  standard  of  good  and 
evil.  Yet  the  steam  of  their  emotions  is  not  con- 
sciously a  product  of  either.  Virtue  is  a  mood  which 
man  has  reduced  to  writing;  it  is  a  logical  mood,  caused 
by  a  tranquility  of  the  mind  and  body.  In  action 
man  is  impelled  by  the  force  of  his  nature,  and  such 
force  is  singular,  or  selfish,  not  logical  nor  pervaded 
with  his  faculty  of  justice. 

Some  readers  will  not  understand  this  book,  because 
it  does  not  deal  with  right  and  wrong.  If  the  reader 
will  take  a  retrospect  of  all  philosophy,  both  religious 
and  scientific,  he  will  notice  one  theory  that  mankind 
is  good  and  evil,  and  another  theory  that  mankind 
is  a  mass  of  energy.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that 
men  are  going  towards  Heaven  and  Hell,  from  one 
standpoint;  from  another,  that  they  may,  as  wilful 
creatures,  disregard  both.  Men  do  disregard  both, 
while  pretending  to  fear  them.  Otherwise  he  could 
not  succeed  in  the  uproarious  prosperity  of  this  age. 
Herein  I  am  concerned  with  what  man  does,  not  what 
he  thinks  he  does  nor  what  he  piously  ought  to  do. 

Today  the  world  has  not  the  same  appearance  that 
it  had  in  the  first  century  A.  D.  The  ideals  are  the 
ideals  that  were  promulgated  then,  but  the  magnifi- 
cent structures  of  civilization  are  the  elaboration  of 
something  else.  The  First  Century  did  not  give  us 
working  directions  for  the  Twentieth.  Something  un- 
expressed was  in  man  that  he  did  what  he  has  done. 
In  fact,  most  of  the  important  events  in  history  were 
accomplished  in  rupture  of  ideal  action. 

What  has  actuated  man,  I  need  not  say.  I  watch 
the  pageant  of  external  things,  called  Progress.  And 
that  is  my  standpoint  herein.  Others  may  solve  the 

222472 


II  PREFACE 

inspiration  of  Progress.  I  take  it  as  a  well-known 
habit  of  the  powerful  race  to  which  we  belong.  I  in- 
sist upon  it  as  the  standpoint  of  practical  philosophy, 
not  for  its  merit  but  because  of  its  presence.  The 
world,  from  once  upon  a  time  until  now,  has  pro- 
gressed. The  spirit  of  Progress  has  given  us  the 
world  as  it  is.  I  do  not  moralize  here  on  what  should, 
would,  could,  must,  or  might  be  in  a  world  of  differ- 
ent principles  which  anybody  else  may  have  in  view. 

Philosophers,  critics  and  public  men  write  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  something  or  undoing  it. 
Each  tries  to  read  the  prescription  upon  which  this 
world  was  carefully  compounded.  With  them  it  is 
either  belief  or  analysis.  Thereunto,  some  people  look 
upon  the  killing  of  a  human  being  as  evil ;  some,  as 
symbolic  of  our  human  constitution.  I  look  upon  it 
as  a  factor  which  Progress  has  used  whenever  oc- 
casion demanded.  You  cannot  reconcile  a  battle-field 
with  religion.  You  cannot  explain  why  a  protoplas- 
mic man  should  slaughter  others  for  God's  sake.  But 
you  are  sure  that,  in  setting  up  his  civilizations,  man 
has  made  use  of  war.  Prophets  have  seen  things  and 
exhorted  people  against  letting  the  vision  go  to  waste. 
Philosophers,  in  their  own  way,  have  scanned  the  ce- 
lestial fireworks  of  the  soul.  Scientists  have  smitten 
the  fiery  horse-shoe  of  the  unknown  and  lugubriously 
watched  it  cool  to  the  same  old  iron. 

The  trouble  with  all  these  men  is  that  they  did  too 
much  thinking;  not  that  thought  is  an  illicit  pastime 
when  a  body  is  feeling  lonesome,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  meditation  gives  man  a  false  opinion  of  himself 
— false  because  action,  though  preceded  and  followed 
by  thought,  is  not  related  to  it.  The  human  race  is 
fond  of  the  prehistoric  and  the  ultrahistoric,  to  know 
what  it  has  been  and  what  it  might  become.  And  it 
has  always  interpreted  its  conduct  by  a  belief  in  these 


PREFACE  III 

two  unknowns.  So  there  are  many  that  look  upon  life 
as  a  drama  whose  last  act  is  technically  built  on  the 
first.  Their  idea  of  creation  is  melodramatic;  which 
is  no  imputation  of  error.  Therefore,  people  custom- 
arily desire  a  book  that  will  "work  out"  according 
to  some  rule  or  thesis  or  moral.  The  principle  of  this 
book  is,  as  was  said,  Progress.  In  this,  I  am  judging 
man  by  his  accomplishments,  not  by  his  statement 
of  the  case.  His  nature  shows  in  what  he  does,  not 
in  that  which  he,  in  his  hours  of  rest,  fabricates  for 
himself.  If  you  do  not  admire  such  Progress  as  we 
have,  you  may  say,  "It  is  wrong;  I  will  not  progress 
with  the  others." 

We  have  been  told  that  human  nature  is  unchange- 
able ;  yet  no  one  has  gone  into  particulars  and  re- 
lated them  to  the  ever-changing  panorama  of  human 
achievement.  Progress  is  a  word  frequently  heard 
nowadays.  Formerly  one  had  but  to  flourish  this 
magic  weapon  to  paralyze  all  opposition.  Subse- 
quently the  opposition  learned  the  trick  itself.  Capi- 
tal and  labor  both  term  their  encroachments  Prog- 
ress; so  that  the  term  is  now  flashed  back  and  forth. 
One  has  merely  to  be  sure  that  he  is  progressive,  and 
then  at  least  he  can  claim  to  be  traveling  along  an 
ancient  and  honorable  road. 

Progress  is  an  improved  system  adapted  to  an  in- 
creased number,  giving  the  minority  an  easier  con- 
trol of  the  majority  and  the  places  which  the  majority 
inhabit.  Some  of  its  rotundas  are  open  to  everybody ;; 
some  are  so  costly  as  to  be  for  a  few.  The  more 
picturesque  the  outside  the  more  are  they  that  are- 
excluded  from  within.  Altogether  Progress  beauti- 
fies, heightens  and  complicates  our  possessions,  with 
a  rapidity  against  which  only  a  cynic  would  protest. 
He  would  be  a  sordid  soul  indeed  who  would  not 


IV  PREFACE 

spare  a  few  moments  to  marvel  over  wireless  tele- 
graphy, even  though  he  could  not  afford  to  use  it. 

Again,  Progress  improves  the  mind,  and  necessarily 
causes  some  mental  retrogression.  Today  many  of 
our  works  are  so  complex  that  few  men  understand 
them.  Perhaps  no  one  understands  all.  The  major- 
ity of  people  have  come  to  take  most  things  for 
granted,  and  do  not  examine  the  wonders  of  daily 
use.  The  mentality  becomes  casual  and  incurious. 
Thus  people  use  the  incandescent  light  with  no  more 
concern  than  formerly  they  lit  a  tallow  candle ;  and  a 
gas-burning  stove,  as  inconsequentially  as  once  they 
kindled  the  logs.  It  might  be  said  that  their  minds 
are  now  even  less  alert  to  the  action,  as  the  later 
facilities  in  operation  require  less  thought.  Devoting 
less  thought  to  a  more  intricate  apparatus  does  not 
improve  the  mind.  The  uneducated  person  now  sees 
less  than  he  ever  did.  The  ordinary  man  moves  in 
a  world  of  keys  and  switches,  buttons  and  wheels, 
pipes  and  wires  that  have  sudden  brilliant  effects ;  and 
that  is  all  he  knows  about  it.  His  mind  becomes  a 
series  of  automatic  impulses ;  reason  is  neglected. 

It  must  be  noted  that  the  more  effective  is  an  in- 
vention, the  fewer  are  they  that  can  afford  its  use. 
Therefore,  in  the  course  of  time,  these  few  will  be- 
come the  very  demons  of  ingenuity  and  power.  Their 
powers  will  increase  and  their  numbers  lessen  con- 
tinually. They  will  eventually  be  in  absolute  con- 
trol, as  so  many  supernatural  beings,  genii  with  domin- 
ion over  all. 

There  could  be  no  objection  to  such  a  condition, 
if  one  is  looking  for  instruction  and  amusement. 
Anybody  who  would  assist  Progress  toward  such  a 
climax,  without  remuneration,  nay,  with  the  toil  of 
his  whole  heart  and  body,  must  be  a  valuable  citizen. 
And  he  is  none  the  less  valuable  because  he  has  been 


PREFACE  V 

lured  to  his  task.  His  motive,  whether  sentiment  or 
avarice  or  cowardice,  does  not  affect  his  utility.  Of 
course,  he  enjoys  himself  apart  from  the  particular 
project  in  which  he  is  a  sucker.  Progress  extorts  a 
small  part  of  his  individuality  from  him. 

This  book  deals  with  Progress  and  the  sentiment 
that  goes  with  it,  in  public  and  in  private  life.  It 
shows  that  even  the  lover  with  his  mistress  has  not 
the  simple  heroism  of  old  in  attempting  her  emotions. 
Her  pleasures  fit  into  the  scheme  of  Progress,  toward 
which  the  lover  must  contribute.  Slowly,  at  first, 
this  book,  in  presenting  the  conventions  of  the  day, 
will  at  length  be  considered  the  most  conventional  book 
ever  written.  It  is  a  veracious  account  of  the  ordin- 
nary  man. 

We  can  imagine  what  science  will  do;  we  know 
what  will  become  of  the  degenerate.  We  cannot  tell 
what  the  ordinary  man  will  do  in  time  to  come.  The 
ordinary  man  does  not  know  what  he  is  doing  now. 
If  John  Smith  is  informed  that  he  is  descended  from 
an  anthropoid  ape,  and  is  also  told  that  he  can  become 
an  angel,  John  Smith  may  take  such  an  interest  in 
the  angel  and  the  ape  that  he  does  not  observe  what 
use  the  world  is  making  of  him  in  these  days.  Poor 
John,  he  is  the  legitimate  subject  of  every  man  with 
a  philosophic  thumb  or  a  grand  theory;  and  yet  as 
he  has  come  up  through  the  ages,  he  is,  as  we  have 
read  of  him  and  know  him,  the  same  grinning  little 
Johnny. 

As  men  are,  in  a  sense,  all  brothers,  if  we  accept 
Nature  as  our  mother,  we  are  all  johnsmiths,  with 
different  names  for  practical  purposes.  Some  one, 
casting  aside  the  circumstantial  evidence  of  the  past 
and  the  supernatural  sight  of  the  future,  waiving  all 
censure  and  flattery,  should  divulge  this  human  be- 
ing as  he  is. 


VI  PREFACE 

Now  I  do  not  say  that  there  are  no  exceptions  to 
what  I  have  to  set  forth;  but  I  do  say  that  the  excep- 
tional case  is  what  has  been  magnified  as  the  main 
action.  Thus  I  give  new  meaning  to  the  proverb 
that  the  exception  proves  the  rule.  The  exception 
will  prove  TO  BE  the  rule.  The  ordinary  man  is 
misled  by  his  greed  and  sentiment,  and  does  not  know 
what  he  is  about.  In  his  public  life  and  most  of  his 
private  life,  he  is  merely  a  cheated  customer  of  Prog- 
ress and  a  disappointed  customer  of  every  sentiment. 

The  reader  is  requested  to  understand  that  the 
writer  is  not  involved  with  any  spirit  of  criticism. 
Accustomed  as  the  reader  is  to  literature  that  is  either 
an  attack  or  a  vindication,  cynicism  or  enthusiasm, 
the  blood-red  face  of  the  agitator  or  the  pallid  excuses 
of  wealth,  he  will  be  perplexed  at  first  by  the  simple 
observations  of  these  chapters.  When  he  has  en- 
dured viewing  each  institution  of  life  from  the  stand- 
point of  Progress,  he  will  see  that  sentiment  for  any- 
thing else  is  a  fiction  and  a  pretext.  When  his  ser- 
vices are  wanted,  he  is  met  with  sentiment;  to  ob- 
tain sentiment,  he  must  hoist  the  flag  of  gold. 


Index 


Page 

Definition  of  the  Word I 

Absolute  Necessity  for  Suckers •  •     3 

Remarks  on  the  Growth  of  Suckerism 6 

The  Biped  with  the  Coin 8 

The  Sucker  Who  Wants  To  Get  Rich  Quickly..    12 

The  Voter   •  • 19 

The  Man  Who  Wants  To  Go  to  Heaven 27 

The  New  Thought  Sucker 34 

The  Soldier   •  • 39 

The  Lover   42 

The  Girl  With  the  Demon  Lover 50 

The  Sucker  in  Search  of  Happiness 57 

The  Optimist  and  the  Pessimist. .  •  • 58 

The  Sucker  Who  Fears  Public  Opinion 61 

The  Sucker  Who  Tells  the  Truth 68 

The  Sucker  Who  Takes   Advice   on    a  Certan  Im- 
portant Question    71 

Reformers  and  Their  Followers 77 

The  Greatest  Sucker  of  All 85 

Something  for  the  Future 87 

The  Idealist  and  Reader  of  Fiction 90 

The  Astonished  Sucker 96 

A  Sucker  to  Whom  We  Owe  a  Great  Responsi- 
bility   99 

An  Ordinary  Day  in  the  Life  of  a  Sucker 102 

The  Sucker's  Holiday 108 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 


Definition  of  the  Word 


It  has  been  suggested  that  the  word  "sucker"  arose 
from  the  name  of  a  sweet  and  unsophisticated  fish  that 
skips  through  the  waters  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  in- 
flowing streams.  Its  aptitude  for  the  hook  was  first 
the  delight  and  then  the  ridicule  of  its  captors,  who 
were,  perhaps  like  many  good  folks,  looking  for  some- 
thing at  once  delightful  and  ridiculous. 

The  pedigree  of  words  is  as  unreliable  as  that  of 
men.  Most  men  like  to  say  they  come  of  good  fam- 
ily J  good  families  indulge  in  a  genealogy  from  lords 
and  ladies ;  the  latter  relate  themselves  to  kings ;  and 
it  is  not  unheard  of  for  kings  to  claim  descent  from 
gods.  There  is  too  much  formality  in  this.  Words 
and  men  should  be  judged  by  their  faces,  not  by 
searching  the  records.  Few  of  us  have  fished  in  the 
Great  Lakes,  anyway,  and  so  could  not  appreciate 
such  derivation ;  but  we  do  appreciate  a  sucker. 

"Sucker,"  then,  on  the  face  of  it,  means  one  who 
sucks — obviously  at  an  idea.  Ideas  are  the  milk  of 
the  mind,  the  nourishment  of  the  soul,  the  food  of 
national  greatness.  And  even  as  a  cow,  or  any  female 
animal,  unless  soft  hands  or  mouths  take  the  milk, 
would  corrupt  its  product,  so  would  great  ideas  drivel 
over  and  dry  without  suckers. 

Those  who  fished  in  the  Great  Lakes  for  the  etym- 
ology of  the  word  argued  that  prior  to  the  discovery 
of  the  New  World,  there  were  no  suckers  in  the  so- 
cial system.  True,  some  were  here  and  there,  under 


2  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

other  names ;  but  there  were  no  traits  of  identification 
running  through  the  various  groups  of  suckerism. 
A  thing  is  not  fully  known  until  it  is  named.  It  is  not 
popular  until  it  is  named  in  slang.  There  were  no 
suckers  until  the  word  "sucker"  appropriately  ap- 
peared. The  classical  terms  of  "dupe"  and  "laughing- 
stock" attest  the  regard  that  was  paid  to  the  unim- 
proved sucker  of  ancient  times.  Still,  the  laughing- 
stock, while  having  some  of  the  characteristics  of  our 
subject  herein,  was  not  a  true  sucker.  He  did  not 
possess  the  commanding  presence  nor  the  theories 
nor  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  that  we  require  of  suck- 
ers nowadays.  And  there  is  another  point:  the  fact 
that  he  was  laughed  at  shows  him  spurious.  For  we 
shall  maintain  and  prove  that  the  sucker  of  today  is 
never  ridiculed ;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  praised,  coaxed, 
fondled  and  maltreated.  He  is  the  majority  of  civili- 
zation. He  has  been  called  the  blood  and  backbone 
of  Progress ;  and  looks  it,  after  the  horses  and  wheels 
of  prosperity  have  passed  over  him.  The  sucker,  al- 
ways belonging  to  a  powerful  class,  and  being  ruled 
by  the  weak,  is  feared ;  the  laughing-stock  was  not. 

Thus,  we  are  informed  that  the  Romans  laughed  at 
the  barbarians  that  were  being  dragged  through  the 
streets,  while,  as  a  serious  matter,  they  needed  the 
barbarians'  town  lots  and  money  in  order  to  conduct 
that  piece  of  high  finance  known  as  Immortal  Rome. 
There  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  something  akin  to 
suckerdom  in  the  victims ;  yet  the  student  will  mark 
that  the  most  important  element  was  lacking:  that 
is :  the  consent  of  the  barbarians.  They  were  captives, 
while  suckers  are  kind  enough  to  follow  the  chariots 
of  their  own  will.  They  are  captivated  by  ideas,  not 
captured  with  force. 

Hence,  our  investigations  will  take  us  into  the  ques- 


THE  WORLD  OP  SUCKERS  3 

tion  of  what  are  those  ideas  that  cause  the  world,  all 
and  singular,  each  and  every  one  in  his  proper  place, 
to  suck  as  aforesaid. 

These  ideas  may  be  divided  into  two  classes;  to 
wit:  first,  in  which  the  sucker  takes  in  his  mouth  the 
nipple  of  some  noble  sentiment  whereby  somebody 
else  openly  profits;  and  second,  where  the  sucker's 
greed  allows  the  somebody  else  to  profit  dishonestly. 
The  result  in  both  cases,  as  may  be  surmised,  is  utter 
frustration,  downfall  and  curses,  followed  by  nau- 
sea, convalescence,  recovery,  and  resumption  of  the 
sucking. 

And  the  beauty  of  this  is  that  everybody  is  a  sucker 
in  one  sense  or  another,  and  nobody  is  inflicted  with 
the  worst  of  it.  Some  get  their  reward  in  money, 
some  in  honor,  some  in  wisdom,  some  in  nobler  in- 
spirations— and  each  is  altogether  free  to  choose  his 
own  milk-bottle.  Oft,  indeed,  this  bottle  contains 
just  what  was  expected;  sometimes  what  is  disap- 
pointing; and  sometimes  there  is  not  even  a  nipple 
behind  the  bottle,  the  sucker  merely  having  had  a 
ninny  put  between  his  lips ;  which  was  a  compliment 
to  his  imagination. 


Absolute  Necessity  for  Suckers 


In  order  that  civilization  progress  and  partake  of 
poetic  grandeur  continuously  or  now  and  then,  there 
must  be,  ready  and  willing  at  all  times,  a  predomi- 
nance of  joyful  and  high-spirited  fools.  These  supply 
the  hurrah  and  sentiment,  money  and  labor:  Make 
no  mistake ;  these  are  not  fools  of  the  brain,  but  fools 


4  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

of  the  world.  In  themselves  they  are  good,  law-abid- 
ing, tax-paying,  intelligent  men;  virtuous  or  avari- 
cious, as  they  are  wanted.  Their  other  traits  will  be 
exposed  later. 

Here  is  a  simple  and  harmless,  even  edifying,  in- 
stance of  the  sucker's  many  uses.  A  hero,  or  a  high 
official,  or  a  foreign  dignitary  is  expected  on  a  visit 
to  a  large  city.  A  few  talkative  citizens  will  greet 
him  and  ask  him  to  predict  a  wonderful  future  for 
their  city,  or  their  climate,  or  their  life  insurance  com- 
panies, their  women  or  their  presidential  candidate. 
They  wish  to  do  this  at  a  banquet  that  will  burst  the 
bladder  of  good  cheer.  How  do  they  proceed?  Meet 
and  pool  the  expenses?  No  indeed.  They  mobilize 
themselves  into  a  committee  and  inform  the  news- 
papers that  accomodations  will  hardly  be  had  for  those 
who  would  like  to  attend.  Then  they  send  out  invi- 
tations to  a  select  few,  that  are  to  enter  free,  and  to 
about  500  suckers,  who  are  to  respond  with  $20  each 
for  the  honor  of  the  dinner ;  and  until  the  date  thereof, 
the  suckers  go  about  with  an  R.  S.  V.  P.  smile  that  is 
unmistakable. 

Here  is  $10,000  in  the  hands  of  the  committee ;  and 
their  first  act  is  to  draw  on  said  amount  their  ex- 
penses for  a  prior  dinner,  at  which  they  test  the  vint- 
ages of  the  coming  testimonial,  debate  the  arrange- 
ments, pound  the  table  with  their  fistfuls  of  opinion, 
calculate  the  cost  of  the  entertainment,  hire  a  flock 
of  musicians,  set  aside  appropriations  for  the  florist 
and  the  hotel-man,  and  see  that  none  of  the  surplus 
falls  through  a  crack  in  the  floor. 

One  concession  is  made  to  the  vanity  of  the  suck- 
ers, and  that  is  recording  the  entertainment  with  a 
flashlight  picture.  Of  course,  the  camera  is  focussed 
at  the  committee  and  the  guest  of  honor.  At  each 
side  of  their  perfect  composure,  the  picture  will  show 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  5 

about  two  hundred  faces  lopsided  in  one  direction  and 
two  hundred  sloped  in  the  other,  the  points  of  facial 
interest  in  dignity,  statesmanship,  philanthropy,  pride, 
satisfaction  and  modesty  being  equally  lopsided  and 
misfocussed  right  and  left. 

At  the  Flashlight  Dinner,  the  suckers  will  get  about 
$7  worth  of  food  and  wine  for  their  twenty-dollar 
piece,  and  are  placed  where  they  must  strain  and  con- 
tort every  little  while  to  observe  how  the  guest  of 
honor  is  getting  along. 

The  particular  brand  of  milk  used  to  tempt  these 
suckers  is  Society.  On  the  next  day,  they  buy 
copies  of  the  newspapers,  which  may  contain  a  pic- 
ture of  the  Flashlight  Tables,  and  they  write  to_the 
photographer  for  a  photographic  print. 

There  is  naught  distressing  in  this.  If  a  few  hun- 
dred men  cocker  up  once  in  a  while  to  pay  for  dining 
with  aristocracy,  why  not?  It  should  not  cause  an 
anarchist  shoe-maker  to  belch  garlic  and  sarcasm.  To 
disdain  these  men  as  individuals  would  be  narrow- 
mindedness;  they  are  necessary  as  a  mass,  a  sort  of 
living  scenery  adding  a  wealth  of  animation  around  the 
confabs  of  the  committee,  the  invited  guests  and  the 
great  visitor. 

Without  these  suckers,  what  would  become  of  our 
civic  pride?  What  would  the  people  of  other  cities 
blab  if  a  metropolis  could  not  muster  five  hundred 
of  its  metropolitans  to  metropolate  each  with  $20? 
And  this  is  but  one  of  the  many  uses  to  which  a  sucker 
can  be  put. 


6  THE  WORLD  OP  SUCKERS 

Remarks  on  the  Growth  of 
Suckerism 

We  are  led  to  believe  that  the  vitality  of  ancient 
nations  depended  upon  war.  At  the  heart  of  every 
ruler  was  a  desire  to  cut  out  the  hearts  of  his  ene- 
mies. This  may  have  been  wicked,  yet  it  makes  good 
reading  now.  It  is  the  ambition  of  greatness  to 
become  historic,  or,  as  we  say  nowadays,  get  into 
print.  Unless  it  get  into  print,  and  is  interesting  be- 
sides, it  dies — is  lost  with  the  mortality  of  its  generation, 
or,  to  speak  technically,  sinks  into  oblivion,  a  place, 
by  the  way,  that  is  full  of  good  people ;  and  a  number 
of  well-meaning  others  might  advisedly  go  there. 

When  governments  rested  from  war,  the  descend- 
ants of  heroes  formed  themselves  into  an  aristocracy. 
They  were  having  a  good  time  when  the  church 
pushed  its  way  to  the  front,  being  dressed  up  for  the 
occasion  with  money  it  had  collected  in  the  rear. 
When  men  were  not  fighting  or  praying,  they  en- 
joyed the  riches  they  had  fought  and  prayed  for.  The 
church  and  the  state  proceeded  to  collect  money  as 
fast  as  they  could  with  good  conscience  and  good  col- 
lectors. In  the  course  of  centuries  a  wonderful  thing 
happened ;  or  rather,  it  had  been  going  on  quietly  for 
a  long  time  before  the  wonder  of  it  was  noticed ; 
some  obscure  creatures  were  making  money  faster 
than  their  betters  were  taxing  it.  There  was  no  way 
of  gouging  the  gold  from  the  possessors,  as  they  were 
already  backed  up  with  laws  and  principles  for  which 
innumerable  poor  suckers  had  fought  and  bled.  Wars 
had  become  memories,  and  miracles  forgotten.  More- 
over, there  was  a  popular  distrust  of  both.  Peace 
had  given  rise  to  men  who  accumulated  their  wealth 


THE  WORLD  OP  SUCKERS  7 

on  peaceful  theories  known  as  profits.  They  multi- 
plied unmolested.  As  men  no  longer  went  to  war 
for  revenue,  and  miracles  having  become  an  invest- 
ment of  decreasing  value,  and  treasures  being  bought 
and  sold  instead  of  being  taken  by  force,  the  Biped 
with  the  Coin  was  found  cockawhoop  on  the  places 
of  advantage.  He  stamped  Liberty  on  his  golden 
coins,  and  bought  as  relics  the  antique  emblems  of 
power. 

So  now  we  behold  the  world  reorganized  on  a  finan- 
cial basis.  Our  population  is  so  numerous  we  have 
conditions  unknown  to  the  classic  states  from  which 
we  have  drawn  our  philosophy,  religion,  art  and  ideals. 
It  is  therefore  with  money  and  the  purchasable  things 
thereof  that  the  moderner  exhibits  his  claims  to  dis- 
tinction. Yet  the  old,  classic  ideals  are  still  with  us, 
and  the  mixture  of  the  old  and  the  new  continuously 
holds  forth  to  make  men  suckers  in  one  way  or  an- 
other. 

To  utilize  these  suckers,  one  has  merely  to  promise 
something  or  ask  something.  This  is  too  simple  for 
understanding.  Let  us  amplify.  The  idea  is  to  prom- 
ise a  large  and  not  necessarily  performable  result  for 
a  moderate  payment;  this  works  upon  evil  and  greed. 
Or,  one  may  demand,  in  behalf  of  some  worthy  cause, 
gifts  or  any  assistance,  and  manage  the  proceeds  to 
suit  himself.  With  suckers  all  around  him,  he  has 
a  special  consistency  as  large  as  the  population  of 
Greece  or  Rome  at  the  time  of  their  climax. 

In  this  way,  there  has  become,  in  our  country,  a 
number  of  inbeing  governments,  classes,  creeds,  clans, 
clubs,  societies,  companies,  and  the  like,  sometimes 
compact,  sometimes  extending  over  the  states.  There- 
fore, the  innovator  has  merely  to  evolve  some  scheme, 
investment,  land  promotion,  stock  speculation,  char- 
ity, boom,  celebration,  adventure,  corporation — any 


8  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

means  of  expending  or  expediting  riches,  and  he  has 
an  immediate  following.  He  takes  the  statistics  of 
probable  suckers  with  affinity  for  this  or  that,  calcu- 
lates on  catching  a  certain  percentage  of  them,  and 
publishes  his  doctrine.  If  the  avowed  object  of  the 
undertaking  does  not  burgeon  with  richness  as  prom- 
ised, the  suckers  are  nevertheless,  during  their  hot 
enthusiasm,  boiled  out  for  the  salaries  and  expenses 
of  the  promoters ;  in  case  of  success,  they  are  frozen 
out  of  the  dividends.  All  these  enterprises  develop 
the  resources,  the  energy  and  the  virtue  of  the  coun- 
try, the  wealth  of  the  directors,  and  several  other 
things,  and  could  never  be  accomplished  without 
suckers. 

Every  man  is  fumbling  in  all  directions  for  money. 
Every  man  with  money  is  compelled  to  do  some 
amount  of  good.  Every  man  has  an  ideal.  From  the 
three  emotions,  arise  all  the  glories  of  society. 

If  there  be  any  one  who  imagines  that  these  lines 
are  meant  sarcastically,  or  as  the  expression  of  a  poli- 
tical opinion,  may  the  Devil  take  him.  A  number  of 
matters  other  than  politics  are  discussed  herein,  such 
as  marriage,  religion,  philosophy,  romance ;  and 
therein  man  proves  to  be  as  interesting  a  sucker  as 
in  public  life.  Some  of  the  most  distinguished  suck- 
ers are  called  heroes,  martyrs,  pioneers,  enthusiasts, 
and  the  like.  Let  us  proceed  with  our  subjects. 


The  Biped  With  the  Coin 

Everybody  knows  that  a  biped  is  a  living  creature 
with  two  feet.  But  not  everybody  knows  how  many 
corns  the  human  biped  has  on  each  foot.  The  corn 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  9 

is  a  pressure  of  that  realistic  circumstance  termed  civ- 
ilization, and  is  frequently  used  metaphorically  for 
discomfort;  while  warts  are  a  gift  from  splendid  Na- 
ture. So  we  may  infer  that  fingers  and  toes,  whether 
meddling  with  frog-pools  or  toddling  through  city 
streets,  should  neither  point  too  proudly  nor  kick  too 
vigorously  at  natural  or  artificial  beauties.  For  the 
present  it  suffices  to  say  that  the  biped  with  full 
pockets  is  civilization's  masterpiece ;  the  naked  biped, 
without  a  cent  in  his  hand,  is  merely  a  work  of  God. 

Now,  the  two  legs  of  the  male  biped  must  have  been 
given  him  primarily  for  the  purpose  of  wearing 
trousers,  in  which  are  two  pockets  especially  adapted 
for  the  distribution  of  coin. 

In  all  society,  the  most  estimable  biped  is  the  father 
of  the  family,  sometimes  referred  to  as  Paterfamilias. 

When  most  characteristic  and  attentive  to  his  du- 
ties, the  Paterfamilias  has  very  little  brilliance  and 
strut.  He  is  not  given  much  to  laughter,  as  any  dis- 
play of  geniality  on  his  part  will  immediately  be  op- 
portunitied  by  some  one  looking  for  a  long-time  loan. 
He  criticises  many  customs  of  the  folks  and  is  al- 
lowed to  apologize  and  do  penance  on  a  cash  basis. 
When  he  cannot  have  his  way,  he  goes  to  sleep.  This 
gives  him  a  moony  rather  than  a  sunny  disposition; 
and,  while  he  may  be  the  head  of  a  firm,  he  is  the 
sorehead  of  the  family.  Occasionally  some  of  the 
family  allow  Paterfamilias  to  accompany  them  to 
the  theater,  if  he  pays  for  the  tickets. 

On  election  days,  Paterfamilias  votes  for  men  whom 
he  has  never  seen,  and  who  have  no  wish  to  see  him. 
On  election  night,  he  shouts  himself  stiff  in  the  neck 
while  the  precincts  are  being  counted ;  then  he  returns 
home  like  a  person  that  has  witnessed  a  very  sad  and 
moral  drama. 

On    Christmas,    he    is   presented   with    some    fancy 


10  THE  WORLD  OP  SUCKERS 

socks,  fancy  slippers  and  fancy  sentiments,  all  of 
which  he  has  needed  for  months.  These  gifts  repre- 
sent the  dregs  of  the  many  dollars  Paterfamilias  has 
allowed  his  family  for  the  holidays,  and  were  bought 
just  as  the  stores  were  closing  up. 

The  Biped  with  the  Coin  arises  in  the  morning  when 
the  rest  of  the  family  are  perfuming  their  pillows  with 
the  breath  of  dreams.  He  arrives  downtown  on 
schedule  time,  for  which  he  assumes  high  credit.  Just 
what  Paterfamilias  does  downtown,  how  he  induces 
people  to  part  with  their  money,  and  how  he  man- 
ages to  insinuate  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  busi- 
ness associates,  is  a  mystery  to  his  family.  Yet  there 
he  is,  every  week,  with  the  coin,  handing  it  out  like 
a  conjurer  to  all  the  yearning  giraffes  at  home,  and 
fearful  of  tellin-  them  that  he  has  seen  a  tobacco 
that  costs  somewhat  more  than  the  old  brand. 

At  the  thrilling  moment  after  dinner,  the  eldest 
daughter  circumfluctuates  herself  about  his  chair, 
clears  her  larynx  and  gurgles  into  the  subject  of 
frowns.  The  younger  powder-puff  artist  languishes 
with  the  blues  until  Artful  Dad  elicits  the  fact  that 
last  season's  hat  might  disturb  the  Peace  of  God  on 
the  coming  sabbath.  The  boys  grapple  their  share; 
and  the  lady-wife  puts  in  a  resolution  for  the  Pater's 
payment  of  another  bill  at  his  office  instead  of  her 
defraying  the  same  from  her  weekly  stipend. 

Throughout  the  month,  Paterfamilias  has  no  lack 
of  manual  exercise  with  the  coin.  Come  pink  and 
green  tickets  for  benefit  performances  of  pink  and 
green  ladies  who  sing,  Louis  XIV  bouquets  for  brides 
and  graduates,  presents  for  departing  friends,  boxes 
of  candy  for  hungry  ones,  donations  to  charity-bazaars, 
silver  sprinkling  for  the  church's  velvet-lined  basket, 
money  for  books,  music,  repairs,  treats,  and  many  other 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  11 

oddities  of  importance  to  the  general  public  aad  the 
improvement  of  the  family. 

To  have  beheld  him  in  the  days  of  his  courtship — 
ambitious  and  vain,  and  even  flattered  (think  of  it. 
flattered)  by  those  who  knew  him — one  could  hardly 
have  foreseen  that  he  would  become  nothing  more 
than  a  Paterfamilias.  And  yet,  perhaps  at  that  time, 
he  stepped  on  the  wrong  standpoint  and  was,  as  a 
lover  too,  a  Biped  with  the  Coin.  He  may  have  made 
love  to  avoirdupois  and  fancied  he  was  getting  some- 
thing in  troy  weight.  Not  every  youth  looks  or  feels 
the  part  he  is  to  fill  in  later  life.  And  so  the  change 
from  lover  to  Paterfamilias  is  one  of  those  comicali- 
ties that  Fate  loves  to  paint  when  she  sends  valen- 
tines. 

What  strange  things  happen  to  standpoints !  We 
imagine  we  are  soaring  through  the  clouds,  until  the 
sores  on  our  feet  remind  us  that  we  have  been  walk- 
in^.  Admiration  makes  mistakes  and  cruelty  cor- 
rects them.  A  man  will  change  until  he  does  not 
seem  fit  to  be  his  own  brother.  The  same  with  many 
things.  It  may  be  that  a  pig,  for  a  contrary  example, 
looks  to  be  the  most  appropriate  animal  that  could 
be  made  into  a  sausage;  and  there  is,  about  the  sau- 
sage, an  impalpable  suggestion  that  it  will  or  ought 
to  be  eaten  by  a  German.  On  the  other  hand,  behold 
a  fair  field  of  flax  in  the  sunlight;  who,  uninformed, 
could  predict  that  that  unconcealed  and  quite  men- 
tionable  verdure  would  go  to  make  a  woman's  gar- 
ment the  very  name  of  whose  use  or  place  might  be 
a  breach  of  good  form?  There  is  in  man  a  certain 
youthful  flax  that  disappears  in  obscure  manhood. 

The  question  remains,  How  has  the  proud  youth 
grown  into  a  middle-aged  sucker  that  he  lets  his  wife 
and  daughters  go  hot-pressed  and  fragrant  through 
the  avenues  while  he  toils  in  a  deckel-edged  collar 


12  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

and  sees  pin-wheels  whenever  he  wishes  to  spend  on 
himself  five  dollars  that  will  not  give  anybody  else 
pleasure?  How  has  society  hypnotized  this  handsome 
unit  of  population  into  cowardly  self-sacrifice?  The 
easiest  possible  way.  The  world  lauds  generosity. 
Everybody  that  has  a  heart-felt  or  a  stomach-felt 
want  in  presence  of  the  Biped  with  the  Coin  talks 
generosity  and  the  nobility  thereof,  and  the  compound 
generosity  and  nobility  of  other  bipeds.  Therefore, 
that  he  might  not  be  called  a  stingy,  gouty,  crabbed, 
miserly,  dry  old  piece  of  salt  pork,  the  sucker  gives 
away  all  his  money.  Notwithstanding,  it  is  a  matter 
of  mystification  with  him,  when  he  does  think,  that 
the  world  does  not  applaud  all  that  it  lauds. 

Now,  if  the  Biped  with  the  Coin  were  not  a  sucker, 
how  could  his  daughters  embellish  themselves  with 
all  those  glittering  things  that  are  advertised  in  the 
newspapers?  If  she  should  not  buy,  the  merchants 
could  not  afford  to  advertise,  and  the  newspapers 
could  not  give  us  all  the  costly  news,  and  we  should 
be  almost  as  ignorant  as  Aristotle  and  Socrates,  who 
had  no  newspapers. 

And  that  is  but  one  utility  of  the  Biped  with  the 
Coin.  As  he  figures  in  many  other  scenes,  let  us 
proceed  further. 


The  Sucker  Who  WantsTo 
Get  Rich  Quickly 

We  must  have  men  who  want  to  be  Bipeds  with 
the  Coin  as  soon  as  possible.  Hazardous  undertak- 
ing are  to  be  encouraged  in  all  matters ;  and  money 
signifies  all. 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  13 

Money  has  a  bad  reputation.  Should  a  man  be 
judged  by  the  money  he  keeps,  he  would  not  have 
many  flatterers.  Judged  by  the  money  he  lavishes,  the 
case  is  reversed.  This  improves  the  status  of  lucre 
immediately.  It  is  not  going  too  far  to  state  that 
wealth  has  been  slandered  by  persons  unfamiliar  with 
it.  A  million  dollars  is  a  pretty  thing  to  look  at;  the 
pauper  is  the  filthy  looker.  Still,  money  has  its  short- 
comings. 

Wealth,  like  unto  every  form  of  organic  and  in- 
organic life,  is  subject  to  disease.  The  pomegranate, 
the  water-lily  and  the  lady  are  subject  to  discrepan- 
cies from  the  facts  which  poets  love.  Beyond  this, 
even  abstract  ideas  have  their  defects  and  swellings. 
Meditation  may  have,  so  to  speak,  enlargement  of 
the  liver;  reason,  softening  of  the  brain;  love  may 
develop  a  mania;  morality,  become  eccentric;  justice, 
become  ossified,  mercy,  burst  into  tears ;  religion,  bite 
the  thunders  in  fanaticism ;  sorrow,  drink  itself  to 
death;  and  charity  may  have  to  swim  after  the  bread 
cast  upon  the  waters.  Likewise,  money,  the  medium 
of  exchange,  circulating  among  all  these  evils,  is  liable 
to  become  infected  with  fraud.  The  methods  that 
pulsate  to  a  vast  national  wealth  suffer  from  excess. 
Trade  becomes  irregular.  Here  and  there  business 
will  do  itself  to  a  bad  purpose.  Opulence  has  fatty 
degeneration  of  the  egotism.  Speculation  becomes  de- 
lirious. 

We  have  ever  within  view  fortunes  made  by  art- 
ful exploit.  Nothing  more  logical  than  that  the  way 
is  open  to  innovators  and  improvers. 

A  sudden  and  extemporaneous  desire  for  wealth 
sometimes  overtakes  a  community  with  all  the  fervor 
of  a  revival  meeting.  There  seems  to  be  a  sort  of 
Renaissance,  an  enthusiastic  afflatus,  as  if  the  popu- 
lace were  conscience-stricken  for  wasted  days,  eager 


14  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

to  quit  laborious  livelihoods  and  become  millionaires 
through  an  act  of  faith. 

The  cause  is  not  hard  to  find.  Upon  a  day,  news- 
papers publish  the  advent  of  a  large,  friendly  person, 
eating  extravagant  breakfasts  and  star-pointed  with 
diamonds  like  the  constellation  of  Orion.  He  has  a 
happy,  hobnobulous  laughter  that  causes  his  club- 
fed  paunch  to  heave  on  the  bounding  main  of  admira- 
tion. Every  surface  inch  of  him  seems  to  carouse  with 
success  and  good  nature.  And  Talk!  He  can  blow, 
tattle  and  blurt  like  all  vaudeville.  And  every  time 
he  dynamites  the  atmosphere  with  a  joke,  the  bar- 
keeper jumps  aboard  and  cries  Hold-fast,  so  that  no- 
body may  fall  off  on  the  turn. 

Somehow  there  transpires  the  idea  that  the  man 
has  come  amongst  us  with  glad  tidings  of  wealth ; 
he  seems  to  be  the  angelic  herald  of  something  con- 
nected with  money. 

In  the  show-window  of  a  notary  public  appear  a 
pile  of  nuggets  and  a  few  bars  of  gold  bullion.  The 
exhibition  is  viewed  by  such  multitudes  that  the  air 
in  the  neighborhood  becomes  unsanitary.  Men  make 
witty  remarks  at  the  expense  of  the  golJ,  without 
lessening  its  quantity,  and  tell  what  they  would  do 
with  it  were  it  some  of  theirs. 

The  man  with  the  sizzling  diamonds  issues  a  state- 
ment. He  has,  up  in  the  mountains,  more  gold  than 
he  can  use.  He  needs  money  to  get  it.  The  stock 
of  his  company  is  listed  on  Exchange.  The  impres- 
sion he  gives  is,  Buy  some  of  my  shares  and  you  will 
soon  be  able  to  garrul  and  bubble  like  me  in  pro- 
portion to  the  number  of  shares  you  buy.  Of  course, 
I  have  the  controlling  interest,  and  I'll  control  it  for 
your  benefit. 

Then  is  heard  the  tale  of  a  poor  washerwoman,  to 
whom  the  original  owner  gave  10,000  shares  for  wash- 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  15 

ing  his  blue  shirt  and  making  him  a  sandwich  when 
he  was  a  prospector.  Now  she  owns  a  hotel  and  au- 
tomobiles and  is  opposed  to  the  income  tax,  and  the 
common  people  fear  that  she  will  corrupt  the  legis- 
lature. The  10,000  shares  are  in  Licketysplit  Con- 
solidated. 

On  a  direct  line  south  of  Licketysplit,  is  the  Epi- 
leptic Dog  Mine.  This  sounds  as  good  as  if  the  gold 
were  known  to  have  taken  the  same  direction.  Sud- 
denly arrives  a  whiff  of  news  that  the  Epileptic  Dog 
is  about  to  have  a  fit.  Men  buy  it  because  Lickety- 
split is  too  high-priced.  The  Lousy  Kate  is  next  to 
Licketysplit,  but  she  has  not  the  mother  lode ;  still, 
she  is  bought.  The  Wormy  Cheese  Extension,  the 
Azure  Ass,  the  Consolidated  Blanche  all  take  turns 
with  the  investors. 

Some  of  these  subterranean  treasure  vaults  have 
no  deeper  openings  than  a  mountain  poet  would  make 
to  search  for  Spanish  doubloons  or  bury  some  of  his 
own.  Any  one  of  them  might  have  been  incorporated 
by  a  faro-dealer  and  promoted  by  an  ex-convict. 
These  trifles  do  not  bother  the  sucker.  Only  his 
imagination  bothers  him.  Not  to  take  advantage  of 
the  offers  would  be  to  lose  all  self-respect,  to  feel 
vapid,  inane  and  jejune.  He  gets  the  fantods  when- 
ever his  wife  urges  prudence.  Before  he  makes  up  his 
mind,  some  one  comes  along  with  a  hyperdermic  sy- 
rin.ee  of  information  that  starts  more  golden  dreams 
and  fevers  with  honey-dew.  And  the  sucker  empties 
his  wallet  and  cools  his  brow  in  another  direction  of 
the  compass.  It  is  when  he  cannot  buy  every  avail- 
able rumor  that  he  trembles  in  all  his  ball-and-socket 
joints  lest  he  has  missed  the  right  one. 

He  buys  all  he  can,  and  waits  for  prices  to  revise 
themselves  upwards.  Everything  is  ready.  He  is  im- 
natient  for  the  band  to  play  and  the  big  trombone 


16  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

blow  a  boom.  Presently  the  prices  go  up  a  little. 
He  gives  a  leap  of  satisfaction  and  stops  with  one  leg 
in  the  air.  The  stocks,  having  leapt  to  their  own  sat- 
isfaction, fall  again.  Anon  they  rise,  promisingly  but 
not  recklessly.  Yet  he  does  not  dispose  of  his  cer- 
tificates, for  he  observes  that  the  insiders  are  not  sell- 
ing a  share.  That  the  insiders  are  not  selling  is 
printed  in  all  the  newspapers ;  the  sucker  thinks  he 
was  the  only  one  to  notice  it.  Upon  which,  he  learns 
that  the  man  with  the  diamonds  did  not  own  Lickety- 
split,  but  was  promoting  it  for  a  friend.  However, 
some  eastern  capitalists  are  looking  over  the  scene ; 
and  hope  wings  forth  again  like  a  chicken  tamale  in 
full  flight. 

The  largest  gold  mine  ever  discovered  is  sucker- 
dom.  Suckers  average  more  gold  per  ton  and  yield 
more  consistently  than  any  hill  of  ore.  Besides,  the 
same  old  machinery  can  be  used  to  smelt  them.  The 
suckers  do  not  buy  an  interest  in  the  gold  that  is 
taken  from  the  mine ;  they  buy  printed  shares ;  they 
raise  prices  on  one  another  to  dispute  the  right  to  a 
small  and  inadequate  dividend  or  no  dividend  at  all. 
When  millions  of  dollars-worth  are  taken  from  the 
mines,  the  suckers  get  little  more  than  interest  on 
their  money.  When  the  directors  issue  no  dividends, 
the  suckers  still  compete  for  the  shares.  The  owners 
take  the  profit  on  the  ore,  and  the  suckers  gain  or 
lose  on  the  market  excitement. 

And  yet,  the  mining-stock  sucker  is  more  intelli- 
gent than  the  experimenter  that  sends  $500  to  a  man 
far  away  who  has  a  scheme  for  returning  the  $500  in 
six  months  with  $1000  more.  Contrary  to  expert  opin- 
ion, this  most  interesting  and  characteristic  form  of 
suckerism  will  never  die  out.  It  has  been  in  existence 
for  centuries.  It  may  have  cessation,  but  will  re- 
appear in  another  form.  The  money  will  be  sent.  The 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  17 

performer  will  have  improved  his  act.  The  sucker, 
even  as  of  yore,  will  not  quite  grasp  the  scheme  be- 
tween the  ears.  He  knows  that  500  per  cent  has  been 
made  and  can  be  made  again.  He  meditates  more 
keenly  about  it  when  his  savings  for  years  is  tinkling 
sweet  and  sad  in  the  distance,  like  cowbells  at  twi- 
light. The  game  has  been  operated  on  a  plan  for  lend- 
ing money  on  real  estate  and  pooling  for  vast  con- 
trol of  corporation  stock.  The  action  is  businesslike 
and  ordinary  on  its  face.  The  man  far  away  adver- 
tises himself  as  President  of  the  National  Loan,  Cre- 
dit and  Fiduciary  System,  which  has  hit  upon  a  new 
principle  of  finance,  new  and  remarkable  as  anything 
in  this  remarkable  and  inventive  age,  yet  so  simple 
that  one  can  but  wonder  how  it  escaped  the  minds 
of  other  great  financiers.  Goldseal  certificates  and 
voluminous  encouragement  are  returned  to  the  sub- 
scriber, who  is  vain  over  the  numerals  and  signatures, 
and  dreams  of  dividends  walking  in  like  geese  at  sun- 
set. Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  while,  in  some 
cases,  the  signatures  are  of  obscure  men  with  no 
assets  but  an  office  in  a  large  building,  in  other  cases 
the  signatures  are  of  well  known  men  led  by  a  re- 
spected citizen  who  may  some  day  be  in  the  prison- 
er's dock.  In  the  worst  instance,  not  having  heard 
from  the  President  of  the  National  Loan,  Credit  and 
Fiduciary  System  for  some  time,  the  sucker  writes 
a  letter.  Next  month,  he  writes  another;  again  in 
two  weeks ;  and,  in  an  accumulation  of  fury  the  very 
next  day,  another  strong  as  a  naval  salute.  The  lat- 
ter ought  to  make  the  millionaire  feel  cheap  as  rag- 
bottle-sacks,  if  he  has  any  manhood  left  in  him.  Yet 
the  fiduciary  president  replies  not  nor  wines,  and  all 
is  mystery,  until  one  day  there  appears  a  newspaper 
story  to  the  effect  that  United  States  Secret  Service 
Agents  have  found  the  fiduciary  man  in  Florida,  and 


18  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

there  is  trouble  with  the  extradition  papers.  He  was 
a  sucker  himself,  for  he  tarried  too  long  at  his  post. 
He  could  not  bear  to  leave  while  the  checks,  money 
orders  and  currency  were  brought  in  with  every  mail. 
The  result  was  that  he  stayed  to  the  last  moment 
and  spanked  away  only  one  train  ahead  of  the  de- 
tectives. Truly,  he  is  the  one  to  be  pitied,  for  he  is 
the  only  one  to  go  to  jail.  Why  not,  may  be  asked. 

Answer :  Every  man  connected  with  a  fake  is  a  faker. 
This  may  sound  harsh ;  nevertheless  a  swindler  is 
mentally  incapable  of  appealing  to  any  but  a  dis- 
honest mind.  He  is  always  a  rapid,  swivel-jointed  fel- 
low glowing  with  large,  Marco  Polo  dreams  for  sud- 
den sale ;  he  cannot  dawdle  with  men  that  are  accus- 
tomed to  pay  what  a  thing  is  worth.  The  man  who 
buys  a  stolen  gold-brick  for  half  what  he  considers 
its  worth,  is  dishonest.  He  who  bets  on  a  horse  race 
and  curses  his  luck  because  the  race  was  prearranged 
against  him,  was  running  ahead  of  his  conscience. 
He  who  finances  any  questionable  game  is  a  rogue. 
He  who  buys  stock  in  a  ship  that  sails  for  sunken 
treasure  is  partner  in  a  nefarious  pursuit.  There  may 
seem  nothing  wrong  in  it ;  yet  the  captain  will  prove 
to  be  an  irresponsible  adventurer,  a  dreamer  of  con- 
traband dreams ;  his  owners  are  suckers.  They  have 
outfitted  a  tawdry  tale,  and  not  for  the  first  time. 
The  sucker  who  enters  a  gambling  house,  does  so 
with  the  intention  of  winning  from  thieves.  He  who 
buys  railroad  stock  or  future  wheat  knows  that  his 
only  hope  of  welfare  lies  in  being  on  the  side  of  the 
shrewdest  and  shiftiest  manipulators. 

It  may  have  been  noticed  that  the  more  stupend- 
ous a  swindle,  the  higher  is  the  class  of  its  victims. 
The  prime  swindler  victimizes  even  his  aristocratic 
accomplices.  When  this  arch-fiend  of  a  fraud  begins 
without  a  single  resource  other  than  his  auroral  prom- 


THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS  19 

ises,  and  escapes  with  a  trophy  of  $100,000,  his  work  is 
first-class  and  so  are  his  suckers.  They  will  include 
the  unpaid  landlords  of  his  apartments  and  offices,  the 
dealer  who  expected  installments  on  sumptuous  fur- 
niture, the  lawyer  who  advanced  money  to  become 
the  legal  representative  and  a  partner,  the  solicitors 
who  put  up  a  cash  bond,  the  typewriter  who  took  her 
pay  in  kisses  and  candy.  All  the  friends  of  the  con- 
cern are  left,  with  stock  certificates,  to  mourn  a  sad- 
ending  masterpiece  of  deception.  It  must  be  very 
fine  melodrama  when  even  the  musicians  weep. 

However,  all  these  affairs  are  the  diseases  of  money. 
He  who  claims  to  have  a  remedy  for  them  is  an  im- 
poster. 


The  Voter 


Voters  are  essential  to  the  peace  of  a  country,  so 
that  they  may  blame  themselves,  and  not  their  rulers 
for  mismanagement. 

If  the  majority  of  voters  were  not  suckers,  they 
could  not  be  trusted  with  the  theoretical  power  of 
government.  Should  the  majority  make  laws  for  the 
good  of  the  majority,  the  nation  would  suffer,  and 
national  credit  look  like  a  second-hand  vegetable  store. 

The  politician  is  a  merry  devil.  He  shovels  fire 
with  the  common  people  and  gets  into  hot  water  with 
the  rich.  Jumping  in  and  out  of  these  two  difficul- 
ties is  the  hardest  work  he  does ;  yet  he  calls  the 
workingman  brother.  At  an  inaugural  ball,  he  wears 
his  fashionables,  and  is  jealous  of  his  rank.  Ming- 
ling with  the  voters,  he  leaves  his  diamonds  home, 
and  says,  "Plain  people  such  as  you  and  I."  When 
he  dines  with  a  Sugar  King,  he  takes  a  lump  of  sugar ; 


20  THE  WORLD  OF  SUCKERS 

when  he  eats  with  a  farmer,  he  picks  his  teeth  with 
straw. 

At  election  time,  he  appears  in  the  cities,  a  fat,  fat- 
tening, bright-nosed  angel  of  light,  jerking  the  skies 
for  liberty  in  behalf  of  people  that  are  supposed  to  be 
sovereign  and  govern  themselves. 

It  might  be  mentioned  that  a  Republic  is  merely  a 
nominal  form  of  government.  Most  voters  do  not 
know  what  they  want,  and  therefore  cannot  legislate. 
The  man  with  an  income  knows  that  he  does  not  de- 
sire an  income  tax.  The  man  without  an  income  does 
not  know  whether  he  desires  it  or  not.  As  long  as 
the  incomeless  man  is  not  decided  about  it,  the  poli- 
tician will  prove  that  the  tax  is  worthless.  When 
there  is  a  popular  demand,  the  politician  must  speak 
to  please  the  demanding  majority.  As  soon  as  the 
law  is  passed,  it  is  handled  and  interpreted  by  the 
class  that  were  previously  hostile  to  it. 

Monev  is  more  powerful  than  votes,  because  money 
knows  its  own  mind,  and,  in  a  large  country,  has 
means  of  interchange  and  communication  which  votes 
have  not.  Votes  are  too  cumbrous  to  act  unani- 
mously. We  are  now  in  the  Reign  of  Gold.  We 
might  call  it  the  Golden  Rule. 

The  politician  is  a  poet.  The  poet  does  not  betray 
his  real  life  in  verse.  The  official  statements  of  his 
soul  are  ideal.  Thus  the  politician.  He  is  a  dual 
personality  with  a  lily  in  his  hand  and  a  tapeworm 
in  his  ambition.  Half  of  his  life  is  spent  in  explain- 
ing and  concealing  the  other  half. 

When  he  goes  down  to  meet  the  people,  he  pre- 
pares for  their  reception  the  most  impractical,  non- 
sensical, irrelevant  and  cheapest-looking  place  in  the 
world.  The  salute  of  his  unphrenological  honesty  is 
well  related  to  the  flimsy-flamsy  decorations,  which 
make  the  hall  fitter-looking  for  a  rag-pickers'  mas- 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  21 

querade  than  the  solemn  duties  of  statesmanship. 
Everything  that  looks  like  coarse  reality  is  twined 
with  bunting,  stuck  with  paper  shields,  dabbed  with 
rosettes,  and  mottoed  with  prosperity. 

Amid  this,  the  haranguer  uses  the  language  of  the 
poet,  the  idealist,  the  lover.  He  goes  into  ankle- 
spraining  furor,  disbowels  the  opposition,  and  dis- 
places the  landscape  in  a  rumpus  of  rhetoric.  He 
promises,  upon  election,  to  jugulate  the  apparition 
that  is  over-shadowing  his  audience  and  threatening 
the  fair  land  with  warlike  destruction.  Call  upon 
him  in  his  official  capacity,  and  you  behold  the  real 
man.  He  does  not  mention  liberty.  He  does  not 
sloganize  equal  rights  for  all. 

And  still  on  the  next  demonstration,  rainbow  upon 
rainbow  looms  in  the  foam  of  his  passion.  He  raves 
with  popular  wonders  and  palpitates  impossibilities. 
Still  has  he  the  manner  of  the  lover  with  his  mistress. 
Ambition  is  his  wife.  Periodically  he  returns  to  the 
crowd,  petting  and  flattering  and  honeysuckling  it 
for  favors. 

The  politician  makes  a  fictitious  appeal  to  the  in- 
tellects of  his  audience.  His  one  aim  is  to  prevent 
the  suckers  from  thinking.  He  gushes  with  the  ir- 
relevant waters  of  eloquence,  rumbles  with  melo- 
drama, and  endeavors  to  make  the  suckers  believe 
that  this  extravagance  is  in  some  way  connected  with 
what  the  butcher  and  baker  will  charge  next  year. 

As  good  an  example  as  can  be  had  of  political  suck- 
erism  that  was  carefully  nursed  year  after  year,  is  the 
protective  tariff.  The  protective  tariff  was  perhaps 
the  finest  piece  of  statecraft  ever  foisted  upon  a  few 
million  suckers.  It  made  them  not  only  support  the 
government  but  pay  a  subsidy  to  the  factories  as 
well.  It  not  only  swept  national  taxes  from  the  earth 
to  the  kitchen  and  bedroom  but  allowed  the  factory 


22  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

to  tax  the  disinterested  citizen.  It  centered  all  the 
pride  and  activities  of  the  country  upon  commerce. 
It  favored  the  industry  at  the  cost  of  the  industrious. 
Instead  of  taxing  a  livelihood,  it  laid  usury  on  the 
necessaries  of  life.  Instead  of  taxing  worldly  pos- 
sessions, it  made  the  human  being  pay  a  toll  for  walk- 
ing through  the  gates  of  necessity.  It  taxes  the  man 
whose  taxable  property  consisted  of  little  more  than 
his  love  of  life.  A  tariff  was  imposed  on  the  infant 
brought  into  the  country  from  the  port  of  mother- 
hood; a  percentage  was  levied  on  its  infantile  needs. 
The  homeless  laborer,  emerged  from  the  ditch,  was 
taxed  the  moment  he  bought  an  undershirt.  Instead 
of  being  taxed  once  a  year,  the  sucker  ransomed  him- 
self from  commerce  whenever  he  made  a  purchase. 

He  may  be  consoled  with  the  statement  that  sup- 
porting the  Land  of  Freedom  by  taxing  the  land  of  the 
free  might  be  fair  but  unconstitutional.  He  is  to  be- 
lieve that  the  constitution  is  a  sacred  thing,  and  any 
word  against  it  the  foul  act  of  a  man  without  a  coun- 
try. The  constitution  is  the  country ;  criticism  of  it, 
unpatriotic.  And  yet  a  glaring  criticism  of  one  part 
of  this  inspired  document  is  another  part,  at  this  time 
known  as  the  Fifteen  Amendments. 

The  idea  that  it  is  difficult  for  a  new  country  to  pay 
a  profit  to  its  manufacturers  was  a  magnificent  one 
in  the  history  of  suckerism.  It  is  one  of  those 
thoughts  that  from  its  very  mystery  convinces  a 
sucker,  who  likes  to  be  mystified,  always. 

When  there  were  opportunities  to  vote  on  the  meas- 
ure, orators  came  and  shouted,  Rally  round  the  flag, 
boys.  They  also  brought  a  few  statistics,  with 
which  they  posed  as  the  very  fulness  and  hot  springs 
of  logic. 

The  method  of  making  the  suckers  rally  against 
themselves  is  something  like  this :  at  election  times, 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  23 

the  speakers  go  into  the  pavilions  and  talk 
patriotism ;  patriotism  having  nothing  to  do  with 
law.  The  speaker's  platform  is  draped  with  red, 
white  and  blue ;  colors  that  do  not  corroborate 
his  statistics.  His  band  plays  the  national  airs, 
and  his  quartet  sings.  Wherever  there  is  in- 
cidental music  there  is  fraud,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  performance  is  music  in  disguise.  The  hall  is 
hung  with  portraits  of  George  Washington,  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  framed  with  red- 
white-and-blue  fly-paper.  It  is  well  for  the  speaker 
that  the  pictures  cannot  come  to  life.  He  says,  Our 
party  will  give  you  great  enterprises  and  at  the  same 
time  make  life  easy  for  you.  Our  term  of  office  will 
be  a  blessing  unto  the  majority  of  you.  And  then, 
with  lubricated  gesture,  he  points  to  the  Grand  Old 
Flag,  and  bursts  the  shells  of  enthusiasm  over  the 
masses. 

It  must  be  a  sorry  mass  of  humanity  that  would 
not  respond  with  cheers  (which  mean  votes)  to  patri- 
otism and  the  flag.  Such  a  mass  would  be  useless 
in  peace  and  in  war.  It  would  not  support  industries 
nor  meet  an  invasion  of  the  enemy.  Poor  suckers, 
they  wish  to  vote  for  themselves  and  the  flag,  and 
are  not  quite  sure  how  this  can  be  done  simultane- 
ously. Being  generous,  they  give  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt  to  the  star-spangled  banner.  What  matters  it 
that  the  flag  has  no  relation  to  the  issues  of  the  cam- 
paign, except  to  shed  its  glory  over  the  candidate  who 
talks  patriotism  and  wields  power.  The  star-spangled 
banner  is  not  mentioned  frequently  on  the  floors  of 
Congress. 

The  main  characteristic  of  the  political  sucker,  as 
of  others,  is  that  he  desires  something  for  nothing. 
While  we  have  the  greatest  nation  that  ever  waved 
a  flag  on  this  terrestrial  sphere,  the  basis  of  the  politi- 


24  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

cian's  and  the  reformer's  argument  is  the  roistering 
idea  that  world  supremacy  can  be  had  without  cost 
and  can  return  a  premium  to  the  wage-earners  be- 
sides. The  truth  is  that  supremacy  cannot  exist  with- 
out suckers.  A  nation  without  suckers,  a  nation  such 
as  the  Socialists  demand,  would  be  the  sucker  of  the 
world.  It  would  be  divided  up  as  soon  as  the  for- 
eigners could  come  to  an  agreement  over  the  division. 
It  would  have  no  army  nor  navy.  It  would  be  happy, 
if  the  other  nations  would  let  it  alone,  even  as  they 
let  the  American  Indians  alone. 

After  listening  with  erected  wonder  to  the  political 
showman,  the  sucker  votes.  During  the  next  few 
years  he  forgets  what  happened  and  what  did  not 
happen.  There  are  also  some  things  that  happened 
without  his  knowledge.  Yet  it  is  good,  at  election 
time,  to  be  palavered  and  slavered  with  the  senti- 
ment that  he  is  a  sovereign  making  his  own  laws. 

All  the  blessings  of  the  universe,  and  in  this  coun- 
try, rest  with  the  Unknown.  The  Unknown  of  the 
universe  is  God;  in  a  republic,  it  is  called  the  Major- 
ity. No  one  ever  knows  what  the  Majority  will  do. 
nor  does  itself  know.  And  it  is  because  the  Major- 
ity has  no  method  of  communing  with  itself  that  it 
must  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  orator  and  then  suck 
at  his  sentiment. 

There  must  be,  after  all,  some  reflex  sense  of  hu- 
mor, some  sweetbread  of  satisfaction  in  the  abdomen 
of  the  sucker,  exuding  a  joyful  pancreatic  juice  over 
his  abdominal  efforts  to  reason.  Such  functional 
thing  would  account  for  his  cordiality  as  it  does  for 
the  laughter  of  the  man  that  falls  into  a  puddle. 

He  believes  that  he  is  a  sovereign  in  a  republic, 
aptly  because  it  is  not  called  an  absolute  monarchy, 
a  form  of  government  that  never  existed  anywhere. 
There  never  was  an  absolute  republic  nor  an  absolute 


THE    WORLD    OF   SUCKERS  25 

despotism.  The  most  despotic  of  rulers  have  done  most 
to  glorify  their  countries,  sometimes  externally,  some- 
times internally.  And  those  of  our  presidents  that 
were  least  sympathetic  towards  the  Common  People 
were  most  terrifying  to  the  foreigner  on  the  throne. 
It  takes  a  prince  to  frighten  a  prince.  The  friend  of 
the  people  is  always  bluffed  abroad. 

Republic?  As  if  eighty-five  million  people  could  be 
a  republic !  New  York  City  is  a  monarchy.  The  United 
States  always  has  been  an  empire,  and  once  waged 
a  five-year  war  with  a  section  of  the  country  that 
thought  otherwise.  True,  there  is  no  right  of  suc- 
cession, no  princes  of  royal  blood.  But  royal  blood 
is  not  the  worst  thing  in  a  kingdom.  Nor  •  is  a 
political  boss  the  best  thing  in  a  republic.  A  royal 
family  is  a  costly  aggregation.  So  is  a  Senate.  And 
why  should  suckers  have  a  Senate  if  the  representa- 
tives represent  the  will  of  the  people? 

Another  fluffy  notion  in  the  brain  of  suckers  is  that 
they  can  be  safeguarded  with  laws.  If  they  were  not 
suckers  they  would  not  have  to  be  safeguarded.  A 
sturdy  man  would  have  naught  to  do  with  a  mis- 
creant corporation.  He  would  withdraw  his  patron- 
age, and  the  corporation  would  starve  to  death.  In- 
stead of  that,  the  sucker  pleads  with  his  public  offi- 
cers to  keep  a  few  brainy  men  from  defrauding  him. 
Very  little  can  be  done,  and  this  for  a  curious  rea- 
son :  the  sucker  has  been  flattered  by  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  into  believing  that  all  men  are  free 
and  equal.  A  corporation  is  a  person  and  is  also  free 
and  equal.  All  the  sucker's  constitutions  forbid  him 
from  making  a  law  that  would  not  apply  equally  to 
the  largest  corporation  and  meanest  beggar.  So  that 
laws  of  state  are  as  intangible  as  the  politicians  who 
made  them.  And  constitutions  that  are  summits  of 
liberty  in  one  age  do  serve  as  ambushes  and  obstruc- 


26  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

tions  in  another.  This  comes  of  being  free  and  equal 
with  a  corporation.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  gotten  up  to  defeat  what  was  then  the 
ordinary  practices  of  royalty.  It  will  not  defeat  the 
ordinary  practices  of  money.  Evil  cannot  be  quashed 
for  more  than  a  little  while.  It  has  a  thousand  phases, 
each  ready  to  spring  up  at  unguarded  places.  The 
only  advice  is  that  every  man  remain  on  guard.  Suck- 
ers will  not  do  so. 

The  sucker  believes  in  himself;  he  is  credulous  of 
his  ability  to  select  honest  men.  And  yet,  when  an 
honest  man  gets  into  office,  it  is  not  because  he  is 
able  to  convince  the  people  that  he  is  honest  but  is 
able  to  sneak  past  the  bosses  while  causing  them  to 
believe  that  he  is  not. 

The  sucker  also  believes  that  the  man  who  opposes 
a  scoundrel  is,  to  be  sure,  altogether  honorable.  A 
scoundrel  may  be  wrought  to  anger  by  the  act  of  an- 
other scoundrel.  History  is  full  of  men  that  began 
in  purity  and  ended  in  the  dregs.  Even  an  honor- 
able act  is  not  proof  of  honor.  If  we  are  to  judge 
by  the  way  some  of  them  vilified  Washington,  there 
were  some  rogues  among  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  If  Abe  Lincoln  had  lived  in 
Washington's  time,  Abe  might  not  have  considered 
it  advisable  to  emancipate ;  or  we  might  have  had  a 
civil  war  with  the  Great  Emancipator  on  one  side, 
and  the  Father  of  his  Country,  a  Virginia  slave- 
owner, on  the  other. 

The  only  reason  why  we  have  had  no  royal  family 
in  the  United  States  is  that  George  Washington  re- 
fused to  accept  the  crown.  And  the  reason  why 
George  refused  a  third  term  was  that  he  knew  he 
would  not  get  it.  The  people  already  complained 
with  a  tired  feeling  for  an  honest  man. 

Another  trait  of  political  suckers  is  that  they  are 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  27 

afraid  to  hear  themselves  talk  when  the  government 
disappoints  them.  Modestly  they  leave  politics  to 
the  professional  politicians.  The  people  at  large  are 
timid  about  appearing  in  public.  Ridiculously  they 
listen  to  the  cry  of  reformers.  The  suckers  want  a 
new  system.  Imagine  inventing  new  rules  In  a  card- 
game  to  prevent  the  opponent  from  cheating.  The 
more  rules  there  are,  the  easier  is  it  to  cheat  a  fool. 
No;  we  do  not  need  a  new  system.  We  but  need  a 
way  of  recognizing  honest  men  before  they  become 
tainted  with  cynicism. 

As  to  revolutions,  they  are  a  disgrace  and  the  sur- 
est sign  of  suckerdom.  Riots  are  acts  of  weakness. 
It  is  a  wretched  community  that  must  resort  to  blood- 
shed for  what  it  cannot  get  by  character.  Think  of 
ten  men  saying  to  one,  You  have  treated  us  so  miser- 
ably that  we  propose  to  kill  you.  A  confession  of 
abject  and  contemptible  life  on  the  part  of  ten. 

The  ordinary  man  thinks  that  by  going  to  the  polls, 
he  is  doing  his  duty  as  a  citizen.  But  it  is  then  too 
late.  On  election  day  he  can  merely  do  his  duty  as 
a  sucker. 


The  Man  Who  Wants  To  Go 
to  Heaven 


It  is  extremely  important  that  some  of  mankind  go 
to  Heaven ;  they  improve  the  earthly  paths  as  far 
as  we  can  see  them  go. 

Verily  this  world  as  it  is  known  would  be  an  un- 
reliable place  were  it  not  made  steadfast  with  the  un- 
knowable. This  inspires  man  to  the  heights  of  hero- 
ism, to  the  profundities  of  hell,  to  the  raptures  of 


28  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

martyrdom,  and  to  the  revels  of  imagination.  Without 
our  appetite  for  the  unknowable,  our  coarser  thoughts 
would  not  assimilate  to  any  purpose.  Religion  tries 
us  out,  forces  us  away  from  sluggish  mediocrity,  and 
wafts  us  to  that  mysterious  air  where  the  last  vesti- 
ges of  reality  are  analyzed  and  dissipated  and  blown 
away,  but  not  forgotten.  For  the  games  of  the  flesh 
are  sweet,  and  man  will  not  go  to  Heaven  until  he 
cannot  go  anywhere  else. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  fact  is  that  many  sagacious 
investors  can  be  sold  an  estate  which  nobody  has  ever 
seen,  whose  whereabouts  are  not  known,  and  upon 
which  the  buyers  cannot  enter  until  they  are  dead. 
Heaven  and  Hell  are  awesome  places.  It  is  a  daring 
man  that  coins  them  into  profit;  he  is  a  far-seeing 
promoter  that  can  turn  the  Future  into  cash;  he  is 
a  shrewd  galoot  that  can  sell  tickets  for  an  entertain- 
ment that  is  to  take  place  on  Doomsday. 

At  first  sight,  it  would  seem  that  the  man  who 
wants  to  go  to  Heaven  must  be  a  pessimist;  he  does 
not  esteem  this  world  as  up  to  the  standard  of  an  Om- 
nipotent's  handiwork,  and  desires  other  evidence  of 
divinity.  On  second  thought,  we  sadly  remember 
that  we  are  mortal ;  and,  it  appears,  that  when  the 
poison  of  the  years  will  have  shriveled  our  bodies  and 
we  are  put  into  the  coffin,  it  would  be  no  more  than 
right  that  the  cargo  be  shipped  to  another  place  pre- 
pared for  us.  Everybody  likes  to  be  immortal.  There 
are  even  those  who  say  they  would  rather  go  to  Hell 
and  be  damned  than  go  nowhere  and  be  nothing. 

The  general  view  is  that  the  more  we  forego  in  this 
world,  the  more  we  will  deserve  in  the  next.  This 
seems  plausible,  and  would  be  a  commonsense,  busi- 
ness-like arrangement  with  Nature.  It  is  quid  pro 
quo,  one  thing  for  another,  tit  for  tat.  The  wonder 
of  it  is  that  any  man  should  be  willing  to  pay  for 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  29 

such  obvious  information ;  and  not  only  that  but,  hav- 
ing paid  for  it  once,  he  should  continue  paying  for 
it  year  after  year. 

It  being  entirely  a  matter  of  faith,  the  question  is, 
What  is  that?  Faith  is  prejudice  rampant,  when  all 
evidence  is  to  the  contrary.  The  prejudice  (or  de- 
sire) has  been  held  to  be  evidence  of  a  fulfillment  com- 
ing. When  all  is  said  and  done,  this  faith,  this  desire 
for  immortality  is  the  only  light  we  have  on  the  fu- 
ture. And  the  best  reverence  to  it  is  joining  with 
sacred  voice  in  the  anthem,  Don't  blow  out  the  light. 

As  soon  as  man  had  the  first  pain,  he  began  to 
think.  He  asked  himself  why  he  was  created.  He 
may  have  felt  that  he  could  not  go  on  until  he  should 
know  why.  Fortunately  there  were  at  hand  other 
men  ready  to  answer  the  divine  question  in  fine,  poeti- 
cal language.  Most  of  them  did  not  go  into  details. 
They  were  wise.  The  more  they  went  into  details, 
the  less  they  were  believed.  Mankind  will  always 
have  faith  in  its  Maker.  It  will  backslide  at  the  name 
of  an  angel.  Man  has  always  longed  for  Heaven,  been 
willing  to  acknowledge  his  sin,  liquidate  the  damages 
in  coin  of  the  current  standard,  and  pay  all  the  costs 
of  court,  for  redemption.  A  man  may  have  hoaxed 
the  sentiment  of  suckers,  and  developed  their  greed, 
and  become  rich  thereby ;  yet  a  sight  of  the  aristocratic 
charlatan  himself,  seated  in  a  fashionable  church,  dis- 
gorging his  gold  on  the  same  unsubstantial  prom- 
ises that  he  has  used  on  others,  is  the  true  meeting 
of  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous.  Heaven  the  unseen 
sublime,  and  earth  the  staring  ridiculous. 

It  must  be  said  that  of  recent  years,  religion  has 
spared  the  rod  and  mankind  has  become  a  spoiled 
child.  Gradually  yet  not  imperceptibly,  churchdom  is 
letting  go  the  tenets  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Yet,  if  there 
is  anything  that  orthodoxy  cannot  slur  over,  it  is  the 


30  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

doctrine  of  Thou  shalt  not  sin.  Formerly  the  sacred 
powers  took  a  decisive  stand  on  this  topic,  and  there 
was  much  authorized  cursing  over  it.  Nowadays  at- 
tention is  directed  mainly  towards  securing  a  large 
church  attendance.  The  successful  church,  not  the 
successful  creed,  is  fought  for.  The  pulpit  is  prone 
to  flatter  the  vanity  of  the  pews  rather  than  enforce 
the  command  of  Thou  shalt  not. 

The  New  Testament  is  a  roof  garden  built  upon 
the  Old.  If  the  Old  is  falling,  the  New  must  become 
a  castle  in  the  air,  not  to  fall  with  it.  Men  have  lost 
faith  in  the  little  discontented  tribe  that  seemed  to 
have  a  genius  for  religion  and  the  slaughtering  of 
an  ox.  The  Biped  with  the  Coin  has  captured 
politics  and  bought  religion.  He  entertains  kings  and 
keeps  priests  in  hire :  The  devout  man  in  black  is  apt 
to  assert,  Believe  or  be  damned;  but  he  no  longer 
dares  to  say,  Obey  or  be  damned.  He  would  lose  his 
situation.  So  the  Biped  with  the  Coin  pats  the 
preacher  on  the  back,  pats  himself  over  the  heart, 
and  does  not  forget  how  to  kick  a  sucker  in  the  ver- 
tex. The  Biped  with  the  Coin  assumes  that  Heaven 
is  keeping  pace  with  the  age. 

Eliminate  money  from  the  world,  and  what  would 
become  of  religion?  Preachers  would  be  almost  as 
scarce  as  saints.  Yea;  not  only  of  religion  but  of 
other  things,  quite  a  few  lovely  branches  would  wither 
and  disappear  from  the  tree,  if  the  root  of  all  evil  were 
cut  out. 

Religion  is  philosophy  in  the  imperative  mood. 
Philosophy  is  blunder  thinking  it  over,  finding  the 
scientific  name  for  a  broken  heart.  And  all  our  bet- 
ter thoughts  are  but  an  indecisive  combat  between 
the  infinite  and  the  infinitesimal. 

Reverting  to  faith,  there  is  a  thriving  suspicion  that 
half  the  clergy  are  agnostics.  The  clergyman,  like  the 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  31 

politician,  when  met  in  the  streets,  does  not  seem 
the  same  skylark  that  lured  us  to  the  empyrean  a 
while  before.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  any  more 
faith  than  is  necessary  to  forget  a  sad  tale  or  laugh 
?*  ?  joke 

Take  the  common  case  of  an  honest  clergyman. 
He  is,  say,  thirty-five  years  of  age.  He  looks  human ; 
he  is  called  a  divine.  "He  relishes  good  gravy  as  well 
as  grace.  He  does  not  boast  the  mustardseed  of  a 
miracle.  Thirty-six  years  ago,  he  was  not  much  to 
mention.  He  did  not  flutter  down  from  the  pearly 
gates.  As  a  physiological  specimen,  he  was,  at  birth, 
nothing  extraordinary  nor  astonishing.  He  brought 
with  him  no  recollections  of  spaces  beyond.  And  yet, 
in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  his  age,  he  sprawls  above  a 
pulpit  and  explains  the  universe.  He  administers  in- 
vective and  solace  in  the  proper  place.  He  shouts 
creation  and  doom  with  equal  facility. 

Whatever  may  be  the  preacher's  knowledge  of  di- 
vinity, whatever  may  be  his  influence  in  the  next 
world,  the  listener  has  no  way  of  satisfying  himself. 
Flattered  and  exhorted,  his  soul  goes  to  an  assigna- 
tion of  beauty,  miraculous  windows,  incense  exalting 
and  artful  music.  He  is  buying  something  he  knows 
not  what,  nor  if  the  seller  be  entitled  to  sell. 

The  peccadilloes  of  the  church  may  cause  the  skep- 
tic to  deem  religion  the  greatest  graft  that  ever  ex- 
isted on  earth.  This  would  be  a  pestiferous  state  of 
mind  should  it  become  widespread ;  for  it  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  that  there  be  among  the  people 
a  number  of  men  continually  pleading  in  behalf  of 
virtue. 

The  fact  is  that  many  a  fault  of  the  church  is  caused 
by  the  vicious  tyranny  of  the  congregations.  They 
demand  too  much  for  too  little  effort  on  their  part. 
Just  as  women  require  bombastic  phrases  from  their 


32  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

lovers,  and  voters  from  their  politicians,  so  has  the 
soul  of  the  sinner  demanded  of  the  priest,  fantasy, 
rapture  and  bliss.  And  these  blessings  must  be  fore- 
told; though  the  priest  specifies  no  time  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  his  promises,  and  does  not  hold  himself 
accountable  for  anything  that  goes  wrong  on  earth 
in  the  meantime. 

The  old  pagans  were  such  suckers  that  they  would 
not  heed  a  wise  man's  advise,  nor  take  a  medicine 
man's  herbs,  unless  he  could  prove  his  wisdom  by 
performing  a  miracle.  The  barbaric  religions  did  not 
let  off  their  priests  lightly,  but  did  hold  them  account- 
able for  changes  of  the  weather,  success  in  war,  af- 
flictions and  healings  and  events  generally. 

All  present-day  creeds  are  originated  in  miracle,  yet 
the  ministers  thereof  do  not  so  exercise  their  hands 
now.  Very  sensibly  do  they  refrain  from  meddling 
offhand  with  the  supernatural.  And  because  the 
priests  do  not  pretend  unearthly  powers,  there  are 
millions  of  suckers  who  see  no  reason  or  motive  for 
being  good.  There  are  also  millions  of  suckers  that 
would  rather  believe  in  a  dream  than  in  a  plain,  logi- 
cal statement  of  honor.  Dreams  were  once  a  power- 
ful adjunct  in  divination.  They  will  be  again.  Far 
from  the  religion  of  the  future  being  founded  on  rea- 
son, it  will,  as  others  have  done,  take  its  beginning 
from  the  necromantic  nocturn  following  a  welsh  rab- 
bit. It  will  begin  with  terror  and  mystery,  and  end 
in  salvation  for  cash.  It  will  perform  miracles,  build 
cathedrals,  and  end  on  the  streets  with  hallelujah  and 
a  nickel  in  my  little  tambourine.  One  spiritualistic 
medium,  bolder  and  sweeter  than  the  others,  will 
do  it. 

But  this  is  getting  far  from  Paradise  and  far  from 
the  question.  The  vital  point  is  that  the  poor,  be- 
wildered sucker,  saturated  with  a  thousand  frauds  on 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  33 

earth,  wants  to  go  to  Heaven.  He  wants  to  be  happy 
not  only  during  lifetime  but  after  he  is  dead.  He  is 
desperate  now  and  then  and  willing  to  support  the 
professional  blessers  in  luxury  if  they  will  help  him 
to  be  saved. 

Remember,  this  is  the  same  sucker  that  wants  to 
get  rich  quick,  and  that  votes  for  a  politician  he  has 
never  seen,  and  enters  many  transactions  that  prove 
him  to  be  a  fool,  a  coward  and  a  knave.  The  cause 
of  all  this  organized  prayer  and  general  disturbance 
of  the  skies  is  that  the  sucker  knows  in  his  heart  that 
he  does  not  deserve  to  go  to  Heaven,  according  to  the 
rules.  He  knows  what  the  rules  are.  It  is  because 
he  has  broken  them  that  he  is  periodically  alarmed. 
And  he  pays  the  priest  because  he  imagines  the  priest 
fitter  to  pray.  The  sinner  is  afraid  to  transact  the 
whole  business  with  Heaven.  He  craves  the  aid  of 
a  professional,  as  if  he  fears  there  might  be  some 
trick  that  he  does  not  understand  in  the  way.  He  is 
still  a  coward  and  a  knave.  He  slips  a  few  coins  into 
the  hand  of  the  dominie  and  confuses  religion  with 
politics. 

It  is  a  matter  of  responsibility.  If  the  sucker  does 
not  feel  responsible  for  his  own  soul,  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  some  one  else  should  not  assume  the  task 
and  be  paid  for  it.  What  good  it  all  does  may  be  be- 
held upon  arrival  in  Heaven.  If  the  priest  has  done 
well,  he  should  be  congratulated.  Should  the  meet- 
ing occur  in  Another  Place,  the  disappointed  spirit 
should  not  be  hard  on  the  reverend  man  but  acknowl- 
edge itself  for  a  sucker.  Of  course,  if  the  meeting 
does  not  occur  any  place,  nothing  can  be  done. 


34  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

The  New  Thought  Sucker 

There  is  considerable  demand  for  persons  that  can- 
not distinguish  between  the  abstract  and  concrete. 

Men  of  the  old  religions  pray  to  God  and  wait  for 
a  miracle.  The  Newthoughter  prays  to  himself,  and 
considers  his  prayer  granted  by  taking  it  for  granted 
that  he  already  possessed  everything  by  divine  right. 
The  true  believer  moves  the  Infinite  to  concede  a 
wish.  The  Newthoughter  removes  the  wish  and  con- 
ceives the  Infinite. 

The  newthought  person's  achievement  is  a  meta- 
physical catastrophe.  He  turns  his  mind  inside  out, 
and  behold,  the  void  has  becomes  riches.  He  not 
only  pretends  that  his  wish  is  already  granted  within 
him  but  that  he  himself  is  the  answer.  Poverty  has 
only  to  desire  wealth  and  immediately  present  the 
gold  to  itself.  He  says,  "I  am  wealth,  I  am  happi- 
ness, I  am  freedom,  I  am  health,  I  am  the  All  Good, 
I  am  love."  The  error  is  more  grammatical  than 
philosophical.  Truly,  the  extreme  pretension  of  new 
thought  is  nothing  more  than  a  grammatical  error. 
When  the  thinker  sees  that  he  is  not  free,  he  asserts, 
"I  am  freedom."  So  that  he  becomes  person,  God, 
wisher  and  thing  wished  for.  It  is  a  monopoly.  It 
is  not  fair.  Say  that  two  men  are  working  for  a  cor- 
poration. One  pure-minded  fellow  prays  in  the  good 
old  way  for  an  extension  of  salary.  The  other  is  a  New- 
thoughter, and  affirms,  "I  am  myself,  eternal  and 
everlasting,  also  infinite ;  I  am  the  corporation ;  I  am 
the  salary ;  I  am  $200  a  month ;  (a  damned  lie)  ;  I 
am  prosperity ;  I  am  love ;  I  am  happiness."  One 
fault  in  his  theory  is  that  the  Assistant  Secretary, 
for  whom  he  toils,  is  too  busy  to  think  about  it.  The 
Secretary  might  be  willing  to  believe  that  the  New- 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  35 

thoughter  is  God,  but  does  not  wish  that  the  divinity 
be  paid  more  than  $75  a  month,  and  tells  him  to  work 
faster  if  indeed  he  be  divine. 

This  is  not  the  worst  of  the  Newthoughter's  in- 
finite egotism.  Remember,  he  is  everlasting^  back  and 
forth.  He  not  only  possesses  the  universe  in  its 
present  condition  (with  the  exceptions  of  the  evils 
thereof  which  he  does  not  care  for)  but  is  everything 
that  ever  was.  He  can  quote  the  Bible  to  prove  it. 
He  claims  to  be  all  the  great  warriors,  the  poets,  the 
architects,  painters  and  musicians — all  the  good  ones. 
Instead  of  praising  a  thing  ordinarily,  he  states,  "It 
is  sublime;  it  is  I."  He  built  the  pyramids.  He  can 
prove  that  by  that  transcendental  snollygoster,  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  He  painted  madonnas  centuries 
ago.  When  he  attempts  to  prove  that  he  is  Michael 
Angelo  by  designing  a  scene  that  resembles  nothing 
under  the  sun,  he  calls  it  a  spirit-picture. 

Any  New  Thought  society,  for  $25,  will  guarantee 
to  award  the  student  infinite  power,  and  cure  him 
of  constipation.  This  is  a  low  price  for  infinity 
alone.  It  is,  though,  more  than  was  charged  for  mak- 
ing the  sun  stand  still  in  Gideon.  Still,  the  latter 
miracle  was  inferior  to  the  gift  of  infinite  power;  and 
being  cured  of  constipation  were  much  more  delecta- 
ble than  having  the  sun  stand  still. 

The  man  who  buys  infinity  for  $25  would  not  be  a 
sucker  if  he  should  refuse  to  pay  for  it  in  advance. 

Orthodox  religion  is  based  on  questions  that  man 
cannot  answer.  New  Thought  excels  in  this:  it  is 
based  on  that  which  one-third  of  the  Triune  God  did 
not  define ;  that  is  truth.  New  Thought  is  Truth.  If 
Professor  Hoffsnacker  Vosniak  had  stood  before  Pil- 
ate, the  answer  would  have  been,  "Join  our  Mystic 
Breathing  Circle  for  $10,  which  can  be  paid  in  two  in- 
stallments of  $5  each,  and  we  will  show  you,  brother 


36  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

Pilate,  the  marvelous  simplicity  of  Truth."  It  is 
quite  likely  that  Pilate  would  have  pungled  out  the 
ten.  The  only  way  to  convince  a  man  of  anything 
is  to  make  him  pay  for  it  in  advance. 

Some  persons  take  to  New  Thought  because  they 
are  tired  of  the  old ;  some,  because  they  have  lost 
faith  in  palmistry.  New  Thought,  Theosophy,  palm- 
istry, spiritualism,  card-reading,  crystal-gazing,  as- 
trology, mind-reading,  fortune-telling,  find  peaceful 
accomodation  in  the  one  mind.  There  must  IDC  some 
connective  idea  running  through  all  these  occultisms. 
A  more  discreet  occultist  will  disclaim  card-reading; 
but  in  general  they  all  love  to  peek  into  the  future, 
whether  through  a  crystal  ball,  a  pack  of  cards,  the 
planets,  or  any  symbolic  ornament  of  the  impossible. 
Whatever  is  told  for  the  good  is  Truth ;  and  that  is 
New  Thought.  It  affirms  that  which  is  desired,  and 
denies  that  which  is  unpleasant.  The  principle  is  that 
the  disciple,  being  Truth,  cannot  tell  a  lie. 

It  is  readily  seen  what  attracts  the  suckers  to  this 
cult.  Behold  the  program.  A  more  aggrandizing  bill 
of  extravaganzas  is  not  to  be  imagined.  It  works  on 
the  practical  trait  of  human  nature  that  the  greater  the 
offer  the  greater  the  belief,  temporarily.  If  a  vial  of 
linament  that  cures  lumbago  is  worth  25  cents,  is  not  a 
medicine  that  drives  the  gargoyling  lumbago  out  of  cre- 
ation worth  many  times  more? 

What  chance  of  escape  has  the  sucker  when  he  is 
promised  the  following:  Success,  Health,  Personal  At- 
tractiveness, Power,  Realization,  Love,  Riches,  Blessed 
Peace,  Eternal  Life,  a  Greater  Career,  Freedom,  Happi- 
piness,  Youth,  Magnetism,  Holy  Light,  Good  Appetite, 
Mystic  Use  ofthe  Passions,  Power  to  see  spirits  and  re- 
ceive their  messages,  Joy,  Peace,  Admiration,  Identity 
with  God,  etc.  ? 

Imagine  a  sallow,  slack  and  weary,  flat-breasted,  for- 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  37 

lorn  and  sour-stomached  woman  reading  that  list  of 
miracles.  She  would  give  $25  for  any  one  of  them. 
And  then  to  obtain  all,  with  magazines,  books,  life- 
readings,  and  personal  questions  answered  by  the 
Inner  Circle  of  the  Brotherhood.  Very  soon,  she  is 
talking  vibrations,  astral  bodies  and  health  biscuits; 
meets  a  book  agent  that  is  living  on  a  peanut  diet 
and  studying  astrology.  They  hold  hands  in  the  dark- 
ness for  table-rappings  and  materializations.  The 
table  doesn't  rap  for  a  rap,  and  the  materialization  is 
perceived  to  be  a  reflection  from  a  window  across  the 
street.  They  pull  down  the  blinds  and  hold  hands 
again.  Their  patience  gives  out,  but  he  does  not  let 
go  her  hands.  Subsequently  he  borrows  money  from 
her,  and  a  medium  tells  her  that  she  will  receive  it 
back  in  due  time.  The  unfortunate  one  points  to  her 
forehead  and  says,  "God  is  here." 

No  one  can  refute  any  statement  about  God. 

The  subject  should  not  be  left  without  mentioning 
a  curious  hostility  existing  in  creeds  and  thoughts; 
that  is,  the  closer  two  of  them  are  related  the  more 
unfriendly  they  are.  The  tie  that  binds  is  their  main 
controversy.  Christian  Science  avers  that  New 
Thought  is  not  science,  and  orthodoxy  says  that 
Christian  Science  is  not  Christian.  Every  dogma  is 
the  universe  measured  in  few  mystic  words.  Every 
creed  has  a  word  that  is  antagonistic  to  its  synonym 
in  another  creed.  Religious  beliefs  are  doubts  of  other 
beliefs.  In  telling  of  his  aspirations,  a  certain  tall, 
stoop-shouldered  man  once  declared,  "and  there  is  one 
thing  that  I  shall  do  before  I  die,  and  that  is  smash 
those  damned  Christian  Scientists."  "How?"  he  was 
asked.  And  he  replied,  "Astrology."  The  sun  and 
the  planets  were  not  foretelling  a  new  prophet  in  that 
century. 

Spiritualism  is  a  phase  of  New  Thought;  not  that 


38  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

phantoms  are  new,  but  the  present  generation  of  phan- 
toms are  somewhat  disassociated  with  the  true  creeds. 
In  the  olden  days  were  prophets  and  sorcerers.  The 
Prophets,  on  account  of  their  virtue,  were  supposedly 
given  authorized  rights  in  the  supernatural.  The  sor- 
serers  carried  on  an  illicit  trade  with  the  unknown; 
they  were  spiritual  filibusters.  The  orthodoxies  of 
today,  while  necessarily  believing  in  souls,  condemn 
and  ignore  intercourse  with  souls  through  spirit  me- 
diums. So,  there  are  a  number  of  people  who,  when 
supping  at  the  supernatural,  are  prone  to  mix  their 
own  salad,  waive  all  dogmas,  and  subject  themselves  to 
the  wonders  of  experience.  This  is  called  New 
Thought  because  the  ancients  meddled  with  the  same 
forces  without  thinking. 

Far  be  it  from  our  purpose  to  reflect  the  ghost  of  a 
doubt  over  that  spirit-land  that  lies  so  accessible  on 
the  other  side  of  the  medium's  curtain.  One  should 
have  extreme  delicacy  in  asserting  what  is  not. 
Should  a  person  of  imagination  deny  the  existence  of 
ghosts  he  is  immediately  confronted  with  infinity, 
which  is  full  of  a  number  of  things.  Sometimes, 
though,  our  skeptical  nature  makes  us  despise  the 
ghost  that  would  leave  Heaven  to  take  part  in  a  fifty- 
cent  performance;  and  our  esthetic  soul  sours  to  a 
ghost  with  talcum  powder  on  its  nose  and  an  odor 
of  perspiration  about  its  armpits.  But  that  is  a  mat- 
ter of  taste,  not  argument.  The  thing  that  we  have 
in  mind,  with  reference  to  suckers,  is  the  so-called 
materialized  spirit  which  in  the  dark  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished from  a  living  person,  does  nothing  that  a 
living  person  could  not  do,  speaks  nothing  that  a 
feeble  fancy  coud  not  invent.  The  performance  being 
quite  human,  there  is  only  the  word  of  the  medium  to 
the  effect  that  the  obscured  figure  is  a  ghost.  In  order 
to  substantiate  the  existence  of  spirits,  she  exhibits 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  39 

a  substantial  shape  of  worldly  flesh,  weight  the  same 
as  that  of  the  average  farmer's  daughter. 

There  is  a  missing  link  between  what  we  know  and 
what  we  do  not  know.  Imagination  does  the  best  it 
can  to  fill  the  space.  If  a  man  will  accept  flesh  for 
spirit  he  but  gives  the  partisans  of  spirit  another  ex- 
cuse to  evade  the  missing  link  of  evidence.  The  me- 
dium has  but  skipped  over  the  evidence  and  not  added 
to  it.  The  demand  is  for  a  spirit;  this  is  answered 
by  a  real  body  and  an  argument  that  the  body  is  a 
spirit  materialized.  Body  and  argument  existed 
aplenty  before.  Every  spirit  manifestation  is  a  com- 
pound of  circumstances  that  are  congenial  to  fraud. 
The  sucker  is  fascinated  by  the  nullification  of  logic. 
The  two  most  interesting  things  in  the  world  are 
bgic  and  the  absence  of  it.  As  the  latter  is  to  be  had 
without  effort,  the  sucker  gets  his  pleasure  without 
rrental  exercise ;  this  is  true  pleasure,  which  ends  in 
disappointment. 


The  Soldier 

Tkere  is  one  divinity  in  real  life  before  whom  we 
hesitate  to  lay  the  sordid  term  of  sucker.  Neverthe- 
less, in  sooth,  yet  soothingly  as  possible,  sucker  he 
must  be  said  to  be,  and  the  more  so  in  that  he  must 
continue  so,  or  his  nation  would  continue  not.  In  all 
due  reverence,  with  sob  at  heart  and  moisture  in  eye, 
we  mu;t  tag  with  "sucker"  the  wreath  that  we  humbly 
lay  at  .he  feet  of  the  soldier. 

Consider  what  we  owe  him.  Without  his  death, 
we  shotld  have  neither  national  dignity  nor  peaceful 
inspiration.  Without  his  death,  our  every-day  achieve- 


40  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

ments  would  sink  back  into  cringing  commercialism. 
Without  his  death,  we  should  be  skulking,  peering 
hypocrites.  Our  pompous  blood  would  become  stale, 
and  unaspiring  in  its  veins,  without  his  death. 

Statesmen  make  history;  the  soldier  is  history.  The 
nation  has  no  life  until  the  soldier's  life  overflows  the 
battlefield.  What  can  be  greater  than  patriotism  that 
causes  men  to  march  proudly  in  thousands — that  leads 
the  image  of  God  to  breast  the  bullet-waves  of  war. 
The  gift  of  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  is  resigned  to  the 
uses  of  the  flag.  Love  of  life  is  forgotten  in  the 
sweetness  of  a  patriotic  wound.  The  love  of  woman 
is  lost  in  the  sublimity  of  death. 

Courage  is  the  heart  of  all  things.  Etymologically, 
"heart"  and  "courage"  are  the  same.  Courage  is  nec- 
essary to  achievement.  But  then,  even  as  a  man  may 
be  bold  in  one  way  and  timid  otherwise,  so  does  i 
nation  thrive  on  the  basis  of  maintaining  its  courage 
in  one  department  and  its  cowardice  in  another.  Ths 
is  necessary,  as  far  as  the  nation  is  concerned.  And  in 
this,  the  soldier  must  be  regarded  as  no  more  hum-in 
than  the  gun  in  his  hands.  Could  a  gun  be  invented 
to  obey  orders,  the  soldier  would  be  useless.  His 
business  is  to  kill  and  be  killed.  He  relinquishes  all 
claims  to  his  own  person.  He  is  not  only  courageous, 
he  constitutes  the  courage  of  that  part  of  the  nation 
that  does  not  fight.  Should  he  survive,  he  may  be  per- 
mitted to  share  the  good  that  he  has  won.  Ht  has 
taken  a  thrilling  chance  and  should  have  a  thrilling  re- 
ward. Should  he  die,  his  blood  and  glory  g*  into 
the  peace  and  good  will  of  the  non-combatant^ — into 
their  security,  their  oratory,  their  politics,  art,  /cience 
and  poetry,  their  wealth  and  their  honor. 

There  is  no  avoidance  of  such  conditions  eicept  in 
a  military  government,  where  every  man,  serring  his 
time  as  a  soldier  and  taking  chance  of  beirg  called 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  41 

upon,  could  reasonably  enjoy  the  victory  won  by  suc- 
ceeding takers  of  the  chance.  A  republic  does  not 
abide  such  expensive  routine.  A  republic  thrusts  its 
uniformed  heroes  out  of  itself,  out  of  republican  in- 
stitutions into  army  life,  the  army  being  a  nomadic 
despotism.  Whatever  the  theory  of  a  republican  gov- 
ernment it  could  not  be  maintained  without  an  army, 
which  is  the  most  unrepublican  government  known  to 
man.  During  his  term,  the  soldier  is  a  slave. 

It  is  not  unsurmisable  therefore  that  the  soldier 
may  recoil  vengefully  against  his  country,  capture  and 
make  a  despotism  of  it.  Almost  every  country  has  at 
one  time  or  another  become  politically  involved  with 
its  own  captains,  and  surrendered  to  them.  The  vic- 
torious soldier  has  not  a  high  regard  for  the  men  who 
send  his  rations. 

There  is  than  patriotism  no  sentiment  more  to  the 
internal  welfare  of  mankind.  Atheism,  intemperance, 
laxity  of  marriage  laws,  injustice,  gambling  and  sen- 
sation may  exist  in  a  country,  and  even  be  glorified 
by  art;  but  unto  the  country  itself,  there  must  be  the 
virtue  of  patriotism.  To  that  extent,  the  heroes  are 
put  into  the  most  beautiful  surroundings  where  man 
and  Nature  combine  their  energies.  The  arrayed 
steel,  the  mystic  power  of  the  weapons,  the  wonder- 
thumping  of  cavalry,  the  terrific  tramp  of  embellished 
ranks,  the  bugles,  the  music,  the  flag  in  the  wind,  are 
a  sumptuous  enclosure,  lighting  the  sucker  with  a  sense 
of  magnificence,  converting  him  from  a  man  of  pru- 
dence to  a  thing  of  wild  imagination.  In  the  pro- 
tected territory,  within  the  circling  warriors,  the  war 
is  financed,  and  diplomatic  relations  are  felt  for  future 
commerce.  Those  that  remain  at  home  contribute 
their  loud-bursting  rhetoric,  the  thanks  of  history,  and 
the  plaudits  of  a  soldier's  grave.  These  poetic  touches 


42  THE    WORLD   OP    SUCKERS 

are  held  out  to  the  soldier  in  exchange  for  his  life, 
which  must  be  used. 

A  man  is  not  a  man,  he  can  have  no  full  realization 
of  life,  until  he  has  faced  death  in  some  form.  It  is 
probable  that  one  does  not  know  what  life  is  until 
he  has  been  at  least  once  in  battle.  Peradventure, 
after  such  experience,  he  may  know  far  less  than  he 
did  before. 

War  is  the  critical  point  of  racial  advance.  What 
could  better  conduce  to  the  noblest  form  of  life  than 
the  noblest  form  of  death?  For  the  suckers  that  sur- 
vive this  duty,  there  can  be  no  adequate  reward.  Con- 
cerning those  that  have  been  slaughtered,  we  can  but 
honor  ourselves  by  weeping  for  them.  The  soldier 
with  his  haversack  of  glory  and  the  workingman  with 
full  dinner-pail  are  but  objects  for  meditation  rather 
than  reform.  In  time,  both  take  their  revenge. 


The  Lover 


Should  men  make  love  as  seldom  as  they  marry, 
the  world  would  not  do  a  tenth  of  the  business  it  now 
does.  All  the  world  sells  to  a  lover. 

This  is  a  very  sentimental  chapter,  and  is  intended 
to  prove  that  folly  is  an  inspiration  of  much  honor. 
Love  is  a  search  for  happiness ;  and  when  the  blood- 
hounds of  disappointment  are  keen  on  the  scent,  the 
chase  is  awe-inspiring.  What  is  so  beautiful  and  nec- 
essary on  earth  as  a  ruined  castle  with  a  fool  sobbing 
in  the  moonlight? 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  loving  wisely.  Wisdom 
does  not  love.  We  know  things  for  what  they  are, 
and  love  them  for  what  we  wish  them  to  be. 

A  man  does  not  know  himself  until  he  is  exhausted. 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  43 

Only  by  emptying  his  heart  to  the  dregs  does  he  mark 
its  full  measure.  To  be  true  to  creation,  we  must 
overwork  ourselves  and  our  passions,  even  though  we 
give  all  and  receive  nothing.  That  is  angelic.  What 
would  be  the  good  of  an  unforgiving  angel?  The 
Devil  does  no  more  than  his  duty. 

Now,  in  a  just  and  equitable  world,  such  as  our 
own,  it  is  not  the  duty  of  any  man  to  be  greater  than 
his  fellows;  for  greatness  cannot  be  cpmpensated. 
From  that  standpoint,  the  great  man  is  a  sucker.  At 
the  outset,  he  looked  forward  to  honors  and  gratitude 
that  were  impossible.  When  he  has  construed  the 
inscrutible  and  found  fame  worthless,  he  still  goes  on. 
That  is  greatness. 

Extraordinary  sentiment  over  anything  is  likely  to 
make  a  man  a  sucker.  The  lover  is,  in  a  way,  a  great 
man,  and,  of  course,  a  sucker — in  general  when  he  per- 
ceives that  the  mystery  with  long  hair  has  a  mania  for 
shop-windows ;  and,  in  particular  when,  at  his  expense 
she  wantons  with  his  fires  to  test  her  tempered  steel. 

No  man  can  do  justice  to  himself  and  to  a  wo- 
man's beauty  at  the  same  time.  To  treat  her  accord- 
ing to  her  merits  as  a  plain  human  being,  which,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  she  is,  would  satisfy  neither  her 
vanity  of  what  she  is  nor  his  of  what  he  is  getting. 
Still,  the  majority  of  persons  cannot  believe  that  they 
belong  to  the  majority  of  cases. 

When  he  spends  six  months  of  his  income  vainly 
trying  to  ascertain  whether  she  loves  him  or  not,  he 
is  a  sucker.  For  when  his  money  is  gone,  he  ascer- 
tains without  cost.  He  is  a  sucker  when  he  allows 
her  to  persuade  him  that  her  companionship  has  a 
high  monetary  value  which  he  must  meet  continu- 
ally. He  is  doubly  a  sucker  when  she  conceals  from 
him  the  fact  that  he  is  but  half  a  sucker  in  conjunc- 
tion with  a  rival. 


44  THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

Suppose  that,  after  a  few  preliminary  sessions  in 
the  parlor,  seizing  the  outrageous  glory  of  a  kiss,  ex- 
changing of  books  and  conceits,  conquest  of  blushes, 
posturing  at  piano,  watching  the  heavenly  stars  be- 
come dots  of  lovers'  fires,  the  lovesick  orator  should 
ask  her  does  she  love  him.  She  herself  would  be  a 
sucker  if  she  give  him  a  plain  answer.  She  would 
have  to  go  without  many  comfortable  hesitations,  that 
seem  but  passionate  falterings,  until  the  actual  hus- 
bandman arrives  on  the  scene.  The  suitor  is  given, 
at  least,  a  fair  opportunity  to  show  his  utmost;  nor 
could  she  weigh  him  accurately  until  his  extravagance 
has  nothing  left  to  be  weighed  and  he  has  taken  back 
his  wit's  end  in  despair. 

He  is  no  longer  so  young  that  he  will  be  content  to 
play  in  the  sands  of  love.  She  must  take  him  out  into 
a  sensual  tempest,  or  he  will  not  be  interested.  If 
not  fondled  until  he  extends  and  empassions  himself, 
he  will  stretch  himself  and  yawn.  He  loves;  and  it 
would  be  wrong  of  her,  it  would  be  a  spurned  bless- 
ing, if  she  rebuff  him  immediately.  Forasmuch,  it 
may  be  that  she  will  fall  in  love  with  him  later  on. 
Love,  the  great  scene-shifter,  stands  near.  At  any 
moment  he  may  change  a  private  dining-room  to  a 
bower  of  idolatrous  bliss ;  or  turn  sublimity  to  a  tear- 
soaked  handkerchief  for  one  or  the  other.  It  is  gam- 
bling with  the  gods,  and  the  Biped  with  the  Coin  puts 
up  the  stakes.  Every  act  of  spending  is  a  wrger  any- 
way :  you  bet  that  you  get  your  money's  worth.  This 
the  supplicant  must  discover  for  himself.  Just  as  in 
a  school  of  stage-acting,  some  instructions  are  in  the 
manner  of  falling  to  the  floor  without  injuring  the 
backbone,  so  in  real  romance  the  sucker  must  learn 
to  fall  from  his  ideal  without  hurting  his  heart. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  we  have  been  in  error  as 
to  romance.  We  were  misled  )jy  the  books  and 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  45 

poems.  From  these  we  have  drawn  a  belief  that  Jack 
the  Kisser  goes  into  places  of  moonlight,  and  into 
parlor  with  gas  turned  low  in  the  moon  of  frosted 
glass,  and  through  leafy  lanes,  hand  in  hand  with  the 
luminous  damsel  who  does  not  know  whether  she  is 
walking  on  sanctified  clouds  or  plain  ordinary  roses; 
whether  his  arm  is  a  human  arm  or  a  jeweled  serpent 
of  sin.  This  is  a  slight  suggestion  of  the  mere  scenic 
illusions  of  love,  as  related  in  the  story-books. 

Try  it,  any  one  who  would  stare  at  vacancy  like 
an  owl.  Try  it,  to  wit:  to  woo  the  maid  with  silver 
moon,  dim  parlor  and  leafy  lane.  The  girl  that  would 
agree  to  such  a  courtship  would  be  an  impractical  na- 
ture, or  maybe  weary  of  life,  or  she  may  not  have 
awakened  to  the  advantages  of  this  epoch ;  and  it 
would  not  do  to  have  some  other  affectionist  awake 
her,  later.  In  short,  she  is  behind  the  times,  and  in 
all  probability,  so  far  behind  that  she  is  not  born  yet. 

The  model  girl  would  feel  that  the  gallant  who  is 
courting  her  by  the  aid  of  silver  moon  is  buying  in- 
candescent pleasures  for  another.  Leafy  lanes  are 
occasionally  welcome  when  the  overflowing  elegance 
of  a  summer  night  floods  the  soul,  and  the  fragrance 
of  earth  overcomes  the  earthiness  of  the  fragrance,  or 
the  laundry  is  late.  But  the  animated  girl — the  tall, 
stately,  tilt-hatted,  voluptuous,  wide-eyed,  purse- 
dangling,  fascinating,  fault-finding,  aristocratic  honey- 
cooler,  is  not  to  be  duped  with  moonshine.  It  there 
is  to  be  dupery,  it  must  be  something  expensive  and 
worth  yarning  about  next  day. 

Women  are  aware  of  the  sucker's  two  traits  pre- 
viously mentioned:  that  he  is  a  coward  and  a  knave, 
and  they  treat  him  as  he  deserves ;  transform  him  into 
a  pleasure  resort ;  which  is  the  best  thing  that  may  be 
done  with  him. 

In  purchasing  the  follies  and  inventions  of  his  time, 


46  THE    WORLD   OP    SUCKERS 

and  in  the  debt  that  every  man  owes  to  the  general 
good,  there  is  nothing  more  joyous  than  liquidating 
his  liabilities  with  a  woman.  But  only  a  sucker  would 
believe  that  he  is  buying  love  that  way.  Love  can- 
not be  bought  with  either  moon  or  money ;  which  is  a 
pity,  for  the  moon  seems  easily  to  be  got  by  a  lover 
for  his  sweetheart.  Love  cannot  be  bought,  it  ap- 
pears; like  a  rainbow,  it  just  comes — and  truly,  in 
all  its  gorgeous  expanse,  just  as  seldom. 

These  conditions  are  brilliant  phases  of  life  to  a 
brilliant  mind;  for  if  every  sucker  could  buy  love,  the 
one  perfect  woman  in  the  world  would  be  sought  by 
these  Bipeds  with  the  Coin,  and  the  ideal  man  could 
never  pretend  to  have  found  her.  Imagine  rainbows 
purchasable !  Why,  the  idealist  would  never  get 
sight  of  one.  Then  it  is  evident  that  in  romance,  as 
in  other  difficulties,  the  suckers  perform  a  vast  service 
to  humanity.  They  gather  up  all  the  mercenary  wo- 
men, leaving  the  sincere  others  quite  conspicuous  and 
so  neglected  that  they  study  politics  and  reforms  for 
the  nation  and  ethics  for  everybody. 

There  are  strange  and  plutocratish  things,  whose 
cost  is  hung  with  golden  spangles,  and  which  the 
sucker  has  seldom  if  ever  purchased.  The  lady  prat- 
tles of  them  as  if  they  were  common  as  hairpins  to 
her.  And  he,  to  impress  her  that  he  is  a  very  hell- 
bender of  a  spendthrift,  promises  them  one  after  an- 
other. She  has  a  way  of  foreclosing  those  promises 
while  seemingly  thinking  of  other  matters  more  to 
his  liking.  And  yet  she  does  not  often  thank  him  en- 
thusiastically, fearing  lest  he  deem  her  unaccustomed 
to  luxury.  So  he  might  have  begun  as  a  romantic, 
moon-storming  lover,  but  sees  himself  eventually 
nothing  more  than  our  old  friend  and  sucker,  the  Bi- 
ped with  the  Coin. 

In  the  course  of  time,  passion-face  concludes  that  if 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  47 

he  cannot  have  the  woman's  love  he  might  as  well 
take  the  woman.  It  is  the  sucker  that  fancies  in  the 
beginning  that  buying  the  woman  is  buying  her  love. 

He  told  her  that  he  was  intoxicated  with  the  wine 
of  her  lips;  and  he  himself  does  not  appreciate  the 
truth  of  this  at  once,  nor  that  she  took  advantage  of 
his  intoxication.  However,  no  one  is  more  sober  than 
the  man  who  emerges  from  a  drunken  sleep  or  a  lov- 
er's dream.  He  wants  something  for  footing  the  bills 
of  her  procrastinated  refusal ;  and,  if  he  does  not  lose 
his  head,  he  may  redeem  himself.  Her  object  was  not 
matrimony;  yet,  after  her  expensive  negative,  she  may 
not  be  averse  to  glimpses  of  honeymoon.  What  he 
yearned  for  was  a  simple  Yes;  what  he  got  was  a 
$1000  or  a  $10,000  No,  according  to  his  coin.  So  he 
steadies  himself,  investigates  the  pampered  beauty 
without  illusion,  wearies  himself  not  with  Yes  and 
No,  but  applies  himself  to  the  subtle  paradoxical 
charms  between  and  around. 

Frequently  the  lover  has  a  lady  whose  wealth  is  his 
tenfold;  still  he  acts  as  the  Biped  with  the  Coin,  lead- 
ing her  through  the  mazes  of  luxury  at  night,  and 
worrying  through  his  flourishing  maze  of  creditors  in 
the  daytime.  A  woman  with  one-fourth  the  income 
of  a  man  is  wealthier  than  he,  for  her  pleasures  cost 
her  nothing.  She  keeps  herself  alive  to  be  amused  by 
others.  In  order  to  have  pleasure,  all  that  a  woman 
need  do  is  to  resist  gently.  Her  lover,  his  rival  and 
her  platonic  friend  furnish  her  with  the  gaieties. 
There  is  no-  better  established  rule  than  that  a  woman 
should  not  pay  her  own  way.  That  is  why  she  is  so 
fond  of  having  it. 

The  unaccepted  lover,  having  declared  his  passion 
in  every  form  of  language,  from  infant's  google  to 
blank  verse,  oft  succeeds  in  doing  naught  save  exag- 
gerate the  lady's  ego.  A  woman's  exaggerated  ego  is 


48  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

a  most  costly  piece  of  spirtuality  to  handle.  It  if  be 
true  that  the  old-fashioned  swain  began  his  love-mak- 
ing" with  the  question,  Can  you  cook,  he  might  have 
been  unpoetic ;  his  practical  nature  may  have  lost  him 
a  bride  now  and  then;  but  he  did  not  exaggerate  the 
lady's  ego  nor  watch  the  regiment  of  his  dollars  pass 
with  muffled  drums  into  the  gloom. 

The  business  affairs  of  a  lover  are  now  and  then 
in  such  a  state  that  his  income  is  frosted  over  for  sev- 
eral months.  He  must  go  to  his  savings  to  continue 
acquaintance  with  the  ego  he  has  exaggerated.  He 
flattered  her  up  to  the  tantrums  of  extravagance,  dili- 
gently impressed  her  with  the  fact  that  she  was  un- 
reasonably attractive  to  his  heart,  and  then  expected 
her  to  listen  to  reason  at  what  he  considers  a  time 
for  it. 

In  the  leisure  moments  of  his  wooing,  the  sucker 
is  not  as  idle  as  is  supposed.  He  acts  as  a  rival  and 
as  a  platonic  friend  to  two  other  women,  disbursing 
his  minor  cash  to  their  escapades.  He  must  do  this 
in  self  protection ;  for  when  my-pretty-maid  takes  to 
quarreling  and  will  not  see  him,  he  must  go  elsewhere 
with  his  passion.  And  should  she  relinquish  him  al- 
together, he  must  have  some  other  latent  love  affair 
so  well  procreated  that  it  can  be  resorted  to  without 
a  melancholy  interval.  We  are  well  aware  that  in  the 
books  and  poems,  he  does  otherwise.  But  in  the  sort 
of  life  we  have  known,  he  takes  to  the  next  girl.  Now 
and  then  he  drowns  his  sorrow  in  matrimony  with  her. 

These  are  not  rare  cases ;  the  theaters  and  restau- 
rants are  full  of  them.  Singleness  of  purpose  is  a 
fine  thing;  beauty  is  plural.  Man  has  one  heart;  but 
it  has  four  compartments,  all  of  them  busy.  He  has 
also  a  brain  with  many  wrinkles ;  he  has  five  senses 
in  his  flesh,  with  a  love  of  variety;  he  has  seven  days 
in  his  week.  A  little  multiplication  would  be  appro- 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  49 

priate  here.  Suffice  to  say,  though,  a  man  is  not, 
throughout  his  many  fibers,  multitudinously  asleep 
whenever  his  lady  love  has  the  blues.  Why,  the  or- 
dinary sentimental  sucker,  leading  a  broad  life  on 
$150  a  month,  must  have  all  his  interests  and  his 
every  faculty  psychologized.  For  and  unto  this,  he 
has  a  merry-go-round  of  women  consisting  of  the  girl 
to  whom  he  is  engaged,  and  the  girl  to  whom  some 
other  sucker  is  engaged,  and  the  girl  to  whom  he  was 
engaged  hitherto  (and  who  perhaps  thinks  he  is  yet), 
and  a  widow,  and  a  married  lady  suing  for  a  divorce; 
not  to  count  the  clumsy  gfrl  in  the  old  dress.  When 
they  interfere,  he  borrows  money  on  the  day  before 
payday,  and  on  the  second  day  before  the  next  pay- 
day, and  on  the  third  day  before  the  next,  and  so  on, 
until  two  paydays  are  required  to  pay  his  debts.  Then, 
he  loses  his  position  and  must  sit  in  the  moonlight 
with  the  clumsy  girl  in  the  old  dress.  Eventually  he 
reappears  on  the  glad  streets  with  money  obtained, 
nobody  knows  how  and  the  girl  to  whom  he  is  en- 
gaged, who  accuses  him  of  having  passed  the  interim 
with  the  widow.  His  money  gone,  he  again  retires 
to  seclusion ;  returns  for  three  days  and  a  good  time 
with  the  other  sucker's  bethrothed,  who  charges  him 
with  having  spent  his  time  with  the  lady  suing  for 
divorce.  Missed  for  a  while  again,  he  suddenly 
swoops  down  upon  civilization  with  a  dollar  and  fif- 
teen cents,  takes  his  old  love  to  a  cheap  show,  sits 
her  down  to  ice  cream  (how  he  scowls  at  the  restau- 
rants now)  and  then  it  is,  O  romantic  reader,  that, 
with  his  coin  gone,  said  biped  ruminates  upon  study 
and  work  and  long  walks. 

He  did  love  one  of  those  girls ;  he  cannot  remember 
which,  for  he  hates  them  all  now.  Each  one,  in  turn, 
he  had  gazed  upon  as  his  life's  mate,  told  her  that  she 
had  more  influence  on  his  life  than  had  any  other  wo- 


50  THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

man.    Each  one  he  now  remembers  as  merely  a  good- 
time  girl. 

The  Girl  with  the  Demon  Lover 

Nature  has  laid  a  painful  trap  for  women,  and  made 
her  carry  it.  Of  the  fruit  of  good  and  evil,  woman 
must  take  the  seeds  with  the  sweetness. 

What  entitles  the  girl  to  a  chapter  in  the  book  of 
suckers  occupies  a  little  place  just  below  love,  and  is 
known  as  flirtation.  In  her  excitement  she  may  fail  to 
distinguish  between  flirtation  and  love.  As  love  leads 
logically  to  marriage,  and  flirtation  only  unexpectedly 
so,  it  is  plain  that  when  the  girl  supplies  the  logical 
connection  where  nothing  serious  was  intended,  she 
is  playing  the  reformers  game,  Leaping  at  Conclu- 
sions. Marriage  is  a  subject  upon  which  women  are 
presumed  expert.  Experts  are  not  sentimental.  As 
long  as  a  woman  lets  her  wisdom  hold,  she  is  on  solid 
footing;  when  she  is  gladdened  by  sentiment,  she  is 
apt  to  take  a  long,  oblique,  downward  course,  featly 
as  a  fairy  gliding  down  a  moonbeam.  The  moment 
any  one  surrenders  to  sentiment,  he  or  she  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy. 

Who  has  read  most  about  ghosts  is  the  most  likely 
person  to  see  one,  and  be  credulous  of  a  counterfeit. 
She  who  meditates  most  on  marriage  is  most  apt  to 
be  misled  by  an  illusion,  especially  in  regard  to  a  pro- 
posal of  marriage.  Frequently  she  does  not  know 
what  is  Not  a  Proposal. 

She  ought  to  be  suspicious  when  she  is  called  upon 
to  interpret.  She  may  be  a  very  compatible  girl  and 
allow  the  casual  kiss-beggar  to  operate  upon  her  emo- 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  51 

way  he  should,  and  wonder  if  it  be  love.  If  he  makes 
her  guess  his  purpose,  he  is  making  a  sucker  of  her. 
There  is  no  mystery  about  a  sincere  person.  The 
question  of  insincerity  should  always  be  answered  in 
the  affirmative,  unless  there  be  mitigating  circum- 
stances; and  these  the  trickster  usually  contrives  to 
have  ready. 

If  there  is  one  bit  of  deception  in  a  woman  that  re- 
acts upon  her  with  deadly  effect,  it  is  her  apparent 
disinclination  toward  marriage ;  this  attracts  the  lip- 
smith  and  libertine.  Few  men  would  care  to  climb  a 
lightning-rod  when  the  flashes  are  overhead.  The 
house  of  love  has  many  queer  entrances.  Few  adven- 
turers would  be  so  quick  at  the  rod  if  the  air  were  sur- 
charged with  direct  and  expressive  ideas  flashing  mat- 
rimony. The  crafty  ones  look  to  fair  weather  and 
soft,  unalarming  skies  for  their  climb. 

Of  this,  one  may  be  sure :  the  man  that  is  about 
to  propose  marriage  is  solemn  as  a  soldier  in  the  im- 
minence of  his  first  battle.  This  is  the  mood  of  any- 
body about  to  do  anything  for  the  first  time.  And  he 
is  not  altogether  sprightly  on  the  second  occasion. 
The  lover,  if  sincere,  in  sight  of  wedlock's  preliminary 
splendors,  is  deeply  marvelous.  He  desires  to  bear 
himself  well,  and  will  not  rest  until  absolutely  under- 
stood and  until  he  gets  an  unequivocal  answer.  He 
goes  into  important  details  and  a  thousand  others, 
with  exquisite  variety.  He  feels  quite  ceremonious. 
He  does  not  propose  during  a  waltz,  nor  in  a  crowded 
street-car,  nor  over  a  gin  fizz,  nor  introduces  the  sub- 
ject with  indecent  stories,  nor  dawdles  through  the 
months  in  a  way  that  at  once  tickles  the  neck  of  cu- 
riosity and  scratches  the  head  of  doubt.  Nor  will  he 
woo  her  in  slang,  predicting  with  flippant  hypothesis, 
If  vou'll  be  mv  hot  ootato  I'll  be  vour  ootato-masher. 


52  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

that  guise.  Furthermore,  he  has  no  unorthodox  the- 
ory of  something  just  as  good  as  matrimony.  The 
libertine,  the  anarchist,  the  free-lover,  the  socialist,  the 
voluptuary,  the  individualist,  the  affinity,  the  soul- 
mate,  the  reincarnated  lover,  and  who  not,  have  their 
special  forms  of  amorous  plea.  When  they  desire  a 
wife,  they  are  all  one.  The  true  lover  is  a  Puritan, 
no  matter  what  his  previous  philosophy. 

Perhaps  every  woman  has  memory  of  a  number  of 
men  who  made  momentous  love  without  seeming  to 
be  aware  of  such  a  thing  as  a  wedding.  These  men 
used  all  the  poetry,  eloquence,  calisthenics  and 
clutches  that  might  have  been  thought  indivisible 
from  the  idea  of  wedlock,  such  as  "forever,"  "my 
own,"  "my  first  and  only  love,"  "my  happiness,"  "my 
harbinger  of  heaven" ;  but  they  miraculously  avoided 
the  two  words,  "wife"  and  "marriage."  These  did  not 
seem  to  come  within  their  purview  of  Heaven  and 
earth.  There  was  a  tacit  intimation  that  marriage  is 
Hell.  With  their  minds  on  the  horizon  of  forever, 
they  forgot  to  ask  her  to  name  the  day  in  the  center. 

Perhaps  there  are  many  women  not  fond  of  wed- 
ding-cake ;  do  not  esteem  the  frosted  decoration  much 
of  a  grace  to  the  fruity  goodness.  Cupid  is  not  as 
young  as  he  was,  and  the  maidenly  art  of  self  de- 
fence may  have  undergone  modifications  in  modern 
years.  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  many  a  young 
woman,  who,  meeting  with  a  likely  looking  chap,  feels 
the  fragrant  marital  breezes  ventilate  her  windows. 
She  may  be  so  modest  as  to  deny  her  expectations, 
relying  on  his ;  also  on  her  monopolizable  person.  She 
may  be  a  girl  of  many  charms,  that  dangle  on  silver 
chains.  She  may  have  many  moods  (principally  an 
interrogative)  and  tenses,  containing  a  past,  as  they 
say  in  books.  She  overhauls  her  wardrobe,  performs 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  53 

transfigurations  on  her  complexion,  and  freaks  up  her 
hair.  She  yields  to  the  heart-snatcher  in  bacchanalian 
kisses  and  receives  the  brunt  of  his  passion  with  a 
timid  gasp.  After  months  of  wonderment  and  inter- 
pretation, she  may  hear  him  use  the  words  "wife"  and 
"marriage,"  in  an  indirect  way;  and  she  is  sucker 
enough  to  relate  those  words  to  his  previous  florid  ex- 
pression, merely  because  she  has  found  that  he  actu- 
ally has  those  two  words  in  his  vocabulary.  She  as- 
sumes they  portend  to  her. 

Then  and  there  she  may  have  good  cause  to  hold 
him  at  bay  before  those  two  words.  Now  comes  the 
downfall.  At  first,  he  will  pretend  not  to  understand. 
When  the  matter  is  thoroughly  and  painfully  ex- 
plained to  him,  he  will  go  into  a  little  reverie,  consult 
with  his  inner  consciousness,  darkly  hint  that  there 
is  something  on  his  mind,  arouse  her  interrogative 
mood  on  the  subject,  and  then  slowly  will  he  extrava- 
sate  something  of  the  following  fluid  melancholy, 
which  may  be  entitled,  Eight  Good  Methods  for 
Quieting  a  Misinterpreted  Proposal.  He  says: 

That  recently  he  has  been  very  much  annoyed  by 
a  certain  married  woman  who  is  much  in  love  with 
him  and  jealous  and  who  threatens  to  throw  off  dis- 
cretion and  cause  a  scandal  should  he  announce  his 
engagement  to  another.  Or, 

That  his  mother  has  chosen  an  heiress  for  him,  a 
good  enough  young  woman  but  for  whom  he  cares 
nothing,  yet  for  whose  sake  his  mother  would  disin- 
herit him  for  refusing,  and  therefore  he  had  better  be 
careful  and  wait  an  opportunity  for  pleasing  himself. 
Or, 

That  there  is  a  certain  widow,  with  whom  he  has 
never  been  in  love,  but  who,  sad  to  say,  infatuated 
him  a  little  when  he  was  young;  that  she  has  loaned 


54  THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

him  several  sums  of  money,  and  for  the  sake  of  her 
generosity  he  does  not  wish  to  tell  her  that  he  never 
loved  her;  moreover,  although  she  has  been  persever- 
ing with  his  heart  for  a  long  time,  she  herself  is  com- 
ing to  realize  the  true  state  of  affairs  and  in  time  will 
gradually  quitclaim  herself.  So  it  were  wise  to  await 
the  future.  Or, 

That  he  is  about  to  make  some  important  business 
arrangements  wherein  (modestly)  he  implies  that  not 
only  his  business  qualifications  but  his  personality  has 
something  to  do  with  the  case,  there  being  a  certain 
woman  who  has  much  influence  in  the  matter;  that  he 
has  met  her  a  few  times,  and  though  he  has  not  made 
love  to  her,  nor  she  to  him,  she  being  married,  yet  an 
announcement  of  his  engagement  might  spoil  the 
chance  of  his  life.  So  he  had  better  be  silent  for  a 
while.  Or, 

That  a  month  ago  he  received  the  surprise  of  his 
life  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  from  a  young  woman  he 
knew  last  year,  and  to  whom  he  had  never  made  love, 
but  herself  had  proposed  to  him,  and,  at  that  time,  for 
the  sake  of  not  hurting  the  girl's  feelings,  he  had  not 
refused  her  offer  in  language  sufficiently  strong, 
though  he  thought  then  that  he  had  expressed  himself 
to  the  understanding  of  any  intelligent  woman,  but 
now  she  seems  to  assume  that  he  had  accepted  her. 
and  he  must  take  time  to  correspond  with  her  and 
show  her  the  mistake.  Or, 

That  a  certain  friend  of  his,  one  of  the  best  men  he 
had  ever  known,  made  a  little  error  with  some  money 
that  had  been  entrusted  to  him,  there  being  no  crimi- 
nal intent,  but  the  world  would  not  understand,  and 
the  friend  had  come  to  him  in  an  awful  fright,  and 
for  the  sake  of  this  man  he  had  taken  all  the  responsi- 
bility upon  himself,  and  might  have  to  take  a  trip  out 


THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  55 

of  town  shortly  to  straighten  matters  out,  and  what- 
ever he  does  he  hopes  she  will  always  believe  in  his 
innocence,  because  she  is  the  only  outsider  that  knows 
all  the  facts;  so  that  they  had  better  postpone  any 
formal  announcement.  Or, 

That  he  has  to  support  his  mother,  and  his  brother 
is  sick  and  out  of  work,  and  there  have  been  so  many 
emergencies  and  unforseen  expenses  that  marriage  for 
him  for  a  time  would  be  quite  out  of  the  question.  Or, 

That  for  some  time  he  has  been  troubled  in  mind, 
not  with  her  but  with  himself,  for  he  has  be- 
come alarmed  at  slowly  having  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  he  is  not  good  enough  for  her.  Why  marry  her 
only  to  make  her  unhappy. 

Many  a  girl  will  be  able  to  check  off  these  eight 
good  rules,  and  mayhap  recall  some  crank  that  in- 
vented a  ninth.  But  originality  in  love  affairs  has 
never  been  known  to  succeed.  The  good  old  tricks, 
the  good  old  songs  and  the  good  old  jokes  never  lose 
their  power  to  thrill.  Conservatism  is  the  largest  part 
of  man ;  it  is  entirely  without  defense  to  a  conserva- 
tive attack. 

But  all  this  does  not  explain  the  title  to  this  chap- 
ter, The  Girl  with  the  Demon  Lover.  It  is  this :  The 
amorous  desperado  who  is  suddenly  beset  with  cir- 
cumstances where  he  must  use  violent  strategy  to 
elude  the  subject  of  marriage,  does  act  as  if  possessed 
with  a  demon.  The  lady  perhaps  fears  she  may  labor 
too  realistically  under  an  illusion,  and  inquires :  All 
joking  aside,  when  is  this  first  and  only  gambol 
through  passionate  infinity  going  to  have  a  public 
celebration  ? 

His  reasons  and  motives  thus  excavated,  the  demon 
lover  has  abruptions  of  the  intellect,  fits  of  depress- 
ion and  longings  for  solitude.  He  arises  in  a  havoc, 


5«  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

paces  the  floor,  and  returns  to  a  caress.  He  makes 
appointments  and  breaks  them  unaccountably.  He 
leaves  early  in  the  evening  on  mysterious  errands; 
swears  that  it  is  not  to  see  another  woman;  writes 
wild  and  incoherent  letters  that  hint  of  terrible  mat- 
ters; mutters  sentences  that  he  can  neither  explain 
nor  remember;  alludes  to  blood-curdling  events  in  the 
past;  takes  the  girl  to  an  entertainment  and,  without 
warning,  leads  her  away ;  claims  to  be  the  victim  of  a 
conspiracy ;  recites  deeds  of  heroism  that  he  fears  will 
bring  punishment  upon  him,  though  at  the  time  he 
acted  entirely  within  his  conscience ;  disappears  for 
periods  long  and  short;  returns  with  a  changed  man- 
ner, appearance  and  conversation ;  acknowledges 
blowholes  in  his  memory;  tells  her  not  to  be  afraid  if 
something  weird  should  happen  to  him.  Merely  wish- 
ing to  divert  her  attention  from  marriage,  he  has  her 
expectation  tormented  to  death,  while  he  writhes  lest 
her  anxious  thoughts  take  the  form  of  jealousy.  In 
short,  he  so  works  on  her  apprehensions  that  the  poor 
sucker  of  a  girl  thinks  he  is  bewitched,  or  that  some 
god  or  devil  wooed  her  in  the  guise  of  a  man  whose 
unearthly  familiars  are  harassing  him  for  his  return 
to  elfland. 

He  was  only  an  ordinary  chap  with  a  lady-bug  on 
the  brain.  His  sincerity  was  burlesque ;  his  sorrow, 
nonsensical.  His  was  the  kind  of  diabolical  sorrow  that 
wipes  its  nose  with  a  monkey-wrench  and  then  gives 
the  scrap-iron  laugh.  And  she,  she,  perhaps  gulped 
her  misery,  went  to  bed  early  and  sang  her  heart  a 
lullaby. 

She  remembers  when  he  coaxed  and  stroked  her 
reluctant  sweetness  and  whispered  with  the  voice  of 
untutored  angels  at  her  ear. 

Now  and  then  the  demon  is  caught  in  the  net  she 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  57 

has  woven  around  him  and  his  own  toils;  and  in  his 
struggles  he  learns  that  when  a  woman  sees  herself 
a  sucker  she  can  make  it  hot  even  for  a  devil.  This 
should  not  be  astonishing,  after  the  devil  has  warmed 
her  up. 

The  Sucker  in  Search  of  Happiness 

The  failure  of  the  confessed  seeker  of  happiness  is 
indispensible  to  our  content. 

The  prospector  of  gold  mines  is  admirable;  he  aims 
to  acquire  riches  in  the  simplest  way  possible.  He  is 
businesslike  and  scientific.  The  man  who  searches  for 
happiness  is  looking  for  that  which  no  one  ever  found. 

Love,  riches,  ambition,  philosophy,  opium,  travels, 
charity,  lust,  Nature,  art,  science,  drink,  books  are 
some  of  the  places  where  man  has  sought  happiness. 
Give  me  such  and  such,  he  exclaims,  and  I  will  be 
happy.  This  kind  of  sucker  certainly  is  the  coward 
and  knave  that  we  have  noticed  of  all  the  breed.  How 
could  a  man  be  happy  protected  from  everything  that 
is  unbeautiful  to  others?  What  a  knave  would  be 
the  happy  man  that  stands  a  while  on  a  street  corner. 
A  sardonic  Providence  does  not  allow  the  existence 
of  such  a  creature.  Without  ever  having  been  happy 
for  a  minute  (full  sixty  seconds)  the  sucker  looks  for 
something  that  will  felicitate  him  for  all  time. 

The  sucker  who  desires  happiness  is  better  off  as 
he  is.  He  would  be  a  greater  sucker  were  he  happy. 
He  would  be  a  conceited,  idiotic  monstrosity,  and 
hated.  Even  in  order  to  be  approximately  pleased,  he 
would  have  to  possess  a  dozen  things  of  which  few 
men  attain  one.  Health,  wealth  and  love  might  be 
a  good  beginning.  At  that  he  must  possess  an  amount 


58  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

of  discipline  to  prevent  his  wealth  from  buying  too 
much  food  for  his  health.  He  might  have  health, 
wealth  and  love,  and  still  be  a  fool.  Well  then,  give 
him  brains.  Then  the  trouble  begins.  With  brains, 
it  seems  that  he  would  have  to  think.  Thought  is 
not  a  bird  of  epicurean  beak.  It  is  rather  of  flock  of 
various  wings,  with  as  many  carrion  crows  as  hum- 
ming-birds. Besides,  an  appreciation  of  the  sorrows 
brings  about  the  acuter  joys. 

However,  this  is  all  off  the  line.  This  sucker  muses 
on  something  of  which  he  has  read  in  books,  and  is 
angered  when  he  finds  that  life  is  lacking  in  stage 
technic.  He  finds  that  people  are  envious,  treacher- 
ous, cross,  businesslike.  His  wife  makes  him  jeal- 
ous ;  wealthier  men  try  to  absorb  his  fortune ;  the 
poor  criminal  attempts  to  steal  it;  life  is  bad  for  the 
health.  Ambition  brings  flatterers  and  slanderers ; 
philosophy  takes  him  to  the  unattainable ;  Nature  is 
full  of  bugs.  Altogether,  he  is  in  the  world,  with  a 
myriad  people  and  a  myriad  things  encroaching  upon 
the  objects  which  he  considered  sacred  to  his  own 
use. 

There  are  said  to  be  mechanical  ways  of  feeling 
happy.  Cultivate  the  lungs  and  muscles  of  the  jaw; 
then  laugh.  Laugh  loud  and  long  at  everything  and 
everybody.  Gurgle  while  eating  and  drinking.  Give 
the  glorious  guffaw  to  everything  living  and  dead. 
Try  it  first  on  a  sucker. 

The  Optimist  and  the  Pessimist 

There  are  times  for  each  of  these  men,  to  distract 
our  attention  from  the  feelings  of  the  other. 

The  optimist  and  the  pessimist  live  in  the  same 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  59 

castle;  one  points  out  the  banners  above  the  tower; 
the  other,  the  dungeons  within.  The  optimist  leads 
Progress  by  the  ear;  the  pessimist  hangs  on  to  its 
tail.  The  clever  man  sits  on  its  back.  The  optimist 
and  the  pessimist  are  suckers,  for  reasons  that  will 
appear  anon.  In  the  mean  time,  a  fable : 

An  optimist  and  a  pessimist,  both  members  of  a 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals, 
went  into  the  jungle ;  the  optimist  wishing  to  pho- 
tograph a  giraffe.  The  pessimist  carried  a  gun,  ac- 
ceding to  the  conventions  in  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try. After  wandering  for  two  days,  their  provisions 
gave  out.  They  lost  their  way  and  became  hungry, 
optimist  and  pessimist.  The  pessimist  cursed  his 
luck,  and  the  optimist  prayed  for  food.  At  that  mo- 
ment, two  gentle  and  inoffensive  antelopes  came 
sprinting  opportunely  along,  and  the  pessimist  shot 
one  of  them.  He  wore  three  medals  for  shooting  at  a 
target,  and  carried  in  his  pocket  a  box  of  wind- 
matches,  with  which  he  built  a  fire  around  a  choice 
piece  of  antelope  steak,  after  the  optimist's  last  sul- 
phur match  had  blown  out.  Having  partaken  of  their 
meal,  they  again  waited  for  giraffe.  Presently  a 
large,  ferocious  and  ill-natured  lion,  attracted  by  the 
smell  of  venison,  approached.  It  was  owing  entirely 
to  the  untameability  and  threatening  manner  of  this 
beast  that  the  pessimistic  member  of  the  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  was  obliged 
to  send  a  bullet  through  its  heart,  thereby  saving 
not  only  his  own  life  but  that  of  the  optimist,  least- 
wise for  a  time.  They  were  admiring  the  deceased 
king  of  beasts  with  a  sad,  the-king-is-dead  look  in  their 
eyes,  when  another  lion,  with  a  long-live-the-king 
roar,  attacked  the  optimist  from  the  rear,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  eat  him.  This  gave  the  pessimist  the  op- 


60  THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

portunity  of  escape,  of  which  he  made  free  use,  hav- 
ing no  other  cartridge  on  his  person  and  being  unable 
to  reach  another,  as  the  optimist  was  being  devoured 
over  the  ammunition-box.  Arriving  at  the  village, 
the  pessimist,  who  was  not  a  wealthy  man,  interested 
some  capitalists  in  a  relief  expedition  to  recover  the 
optimist's  skull,  which  was  subsequently  found  in- 
tact and  clean.  This  the  pessimist  took  back  with 
him  to  his  native  land.  With  the  surplus  of  the  re- 
lief expedition  and  money  accrued  from  the  sale  of 
savage  implements,  he  married  an  interesting  young 
woman,  who  quarreled  with  him  upon  uncovering 
some  old  love  letters  in  his  trunk;  and,  the  pessimist 
using  some  coarse  and  abusive  language  full  pessi- 
mistic of  the  lady's  earthly  past  and  spiritual  future, 
she  sued  him  for  divorce.  Afterwards  he  did  a  num- 
ber of  things,  the  last  of  which  was  to  die. 

Moral :  What  we  greatly  desire  is  pure  reason  un- 
polluted with  fact. 

The  optimist  does  not  look  on  the  bad  side;  he  is 
afraid  of  it.  The  pessimist  looks  on  the  bad  side, 
being  fascinated  with  fear.  One  eats  the  bride's  first 
biscuits  in  a  sentimental  fear  of  the  bride;  the  other 
refuses  in  fantastic  fear  of  the  biscuits.  Both  are 
cowards  to  some  degree,  the  pessimist  in  the  main. 
He  is  afraid  of  everything  but  an  optimist. 

The  damnable  traits  of  these  two  gentlemen  is  their 
habit  of  appearing  at  the  wrong  time.  When  we  are 
trying  to  drill  the  money  market  with  a  brilliant 
scheme,  and  are  engaged  over  the  hypothetical  profits, 
the  pessimist  pays  us  a  visit.  When  we  have  not  a 
cent  or  a  scheme  in  the  world,  the  optimist  comes  and 
confides  in  us  a  scheme  of  his  own.  Moreover,  the 
one  man  is  sometimes  found  fulfilling  the  office  of 
good  and  evil  prophet.  We  often  have  cause  to  won- 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  61 

der  why  on  one  occasion  we  behold  a  man  shaking 
the  sleigh-bells  at  folly,  and  on  another  smashing  the 
windows  of  honest  mirth.  The  reason  is  that  the 
sleigh-bells  are  his  own,  but  the  windows  are  not. 

He  is  a  sucker  who  thinks  too  much  about  matters 
which  do  not  concern  him,  as,  for  instance,  the  meaning 
of  life.  Cowardice  nags  him  to  interpret  it;  knavery 
impels  him  to  boast  of  interpreting  it  right.  Infinity 
still  keeps  us  aguessing.  Why  trust  a  man  who 
judges  pleasure  by  the  way  it  makes  him  feel  next 
day,  or  by  the  way  it  will  make  him  feel  after  he  is 
dead? 

It  behooves  us  to  consider,  therefore,  whether  or 
not  there  are  such  persons  as  optimist  and  pessimist, 
and  if  there  be,  whether  they  are  two  persons  or  one. 
Go  eat  a  roll  of  butter  and  think  it  over. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  without  cavil,  quibble  or  cir- 
cumbendibus, an  optimist  talks  about  himself;  you 
talk  to  a  pessimist.  One  man.  The  optimist  is  a 
sucker  for  believing  in  everybody ;  the  pessimist  is  a 
sucker  for  believing  in  himself.  If  the  optimist  were 
not  a  coward,  he  would  gaily  poison  a  few  persons 
to  show  that  there  is  nothing  calamitous  in  the  trag- 
edy either  for  the  victims  or  himself.  If  the  pessi- 
mist were  not  a  coward,  he  would  kill  the  optimist,  and 
thus  gain  our  esteem,  or  commit  suicide  and  let  us 
prove  that  we  are  noble  enough  to  forgive  the  dead. 

The  Sucker  Who  Fears  Public 
Opinion 

It  is  imperative  that  people  act  in  accordance  with 
one  another's  wishes.  We  could  not  get  along  with- 
out the  sucker  who  fears  the  others.  He  is  necessary 


62  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

to  the  peace  of  the  state.  Imagine  a  man  brave 
enough  to  think  for  himself.  He  would  be  a  genius; 
and  prithee  consider  a  country  populated  with  ge- 
niuses. Each  would  be  a  nation,  a  religion,  a  philoso- 
phy and  set  of  customs  unto  himself.  Children  think 
for  themselves  and  care  naught  for  public  opinion. 
Fortunately  they  are  small  and  can  be  easily  flogged 
into  submission. 

Public  Opinion  is  the  dame  to  whom  even  a  king 
must  take  off  his  hat,  even  though  he  blacken  her 
eyes  once  in  a  while.  Hence  the  observation  that 
whatever  is  done  in  public  is  a  matter  of  opinion; 
what  is  not  done  in  public  is  a  matter  of  conscience. 
The  distinction  is  not  quite  clear  yet,  but  is  readily 
made  so  by  the  old  conundrum,  When  is  a  door  not 
a  door?  The  answer  being,  When  somebody  is  peek- 
ing through  the  keyhole.  All  sorts  of  performances 
may  go  on  within  the  door,  provided  it  is  a  door;  that 
is,  if  it  constitutes  an  effective  barrier  to  the  vision. 
A  man's  duty  to  himself  is  to  be  an  egotist;  his  duty 
to  the  public  is  to  keep  the  fact  to  himself.  He  is  a 
fool  for  complying  with  the  public ;  he  is  a  fool  for 
letting  the  public  know  he  doesn't.  He  owes  it  to  the 
public  to  use  the  finest  precaution  against  becoming 
notorious.  Wherefore,  we  have  the  moral :  After 
locking  the  door,  hang  your  hat  over  the  keyhole. 
Thus  no  one  is  offended ;  which  is  all  that  Public 
Opinion  demands.  As  the  sentry  at  the  fort  says, 
You  can  pluck  those  flowers ;  but  don't  let  me  see  you. 

You  may  not,  but  you  can ;  and  if  you  do,  seem 
to  not.  That  is  as  far  as  Public  Opinion  goes— pro- 
priety. Morality  is  something  else.  Most  people  fail 
to  distinguish  between  the  two.  Good  taste  confuses 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  63 

of  pumpkin  pie,  and  leaves  the  room  for  a  few  min- 
utes. If,  during-  such  absence,  Paul  should  clandes- 
tinely acquire  Peter's  pie  and  eat  it,  the  act  would  be 
theftous  and  immoral.  If,  however,  Paul  should 'sub- 
jugate the  pie  boisterously,  as  a  good  practical  joke 
on  Peter,  and  consume  said  pastry  with  boasts  and 
laughter,  he  would  add  impropriety  to  the  misdeed. 
Whenas,  eating  Peter's  pie  with  Paul's  carving  knife 
would  be  a  breach  of  good  taste,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  bad  manners  involved.  Public  Opinion  would 
concern  itself  with  the  second  and  third  cases.  For. 
in  the  first  instance,  Paul  could  have  slyly  replaced 
Peter's  full  plate  with  an  empty  one,  and,  on  subse- 
quent inquiry  as  to  the  pie,  could  maintain  that  Peter 
himself  had  eaten  it  before  leaving  the  room.  If  Peter 
is  not  satisfied  with  this  explanation,  but  should  pur- 
sue an  investigation  among  the  other  guests,  then  he 
is  acting  in  bad  taste ;  and  if  he  expostulate  obstrep- 
erously, impropriety  is  on  him.  Then,  if  Paul  turn  to 
him,  and  in  kindly  voice  adjure  him,  "My  dear  sir,  I 
am  as  deeply  grieved  as  yourself  over  this  unfortu- 
nate question.  Believe  me,  it  is  not  guiltily  but  only 
to  promote  good  will,  that  I  offer  you  ten  cents  with 
which  to  get  yourself  another  piece  of  pie.  If  that 
does  not  content  you,  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  ready 
to  defend  my  honor  with  my  life," — public  opinion 
will  shift  to  Paul's  side,  already  wavering  at  the  others 
inadvisable  conduct.  Public  Opinion  cares  not  who 
ate  the  pie,  but  rather  admires  a  gracious  manner  of 
avoiding  the  subject. 

With  these  differentiations  in  mind,  it  is  easily  seen 
that  Public  Opinion  is  a  complex  Lady  with  rings  on 
her  fingers  and  her  skirt  over  her  toes.  She  does  not 
condemn  a  gentleman  for  having  a  little  mystery 
about  him.  Within  that  mystery,  he  may  do  what 


64  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

Both  the  punishment  and  the  reward  of  PUDHC 
Opinion  is  an  uncertain  thing  known  as  Talk.  It  Is 
the  private  opinion  of  some  persons  that  Talk  is 
cheap.  But  this  applies  only  to  the  Talk  of  cheap 
men.  Other  Talk  is  very  expensive.  Millions  of  dol- 
lars are  required  to  cause  Talk  in  fashionable  circles 
and  ovals,  and  prevent  it  in  others.  A  nation  will 
spend  large  sums  of  money  in  fleet  maneuvers  to 
cause  Talk  among  other  nations.  Agricultural  cc-un- 
ties  subscribe  money  to  cause  Talk.  Mammonitish 
women  wear  diamonds  to  cause  Talk.  Poets  buy 
fancy  wines  for  their  friends  to  cause  Talk.  In  all 
these  cases  of  purchased  Public  Opinion,  the  dainty 
skill  is  in  not  causing  people  to  talk  too  much.  Cal- 
amity is  ever  hunting  for  suckers.  Pleasing  everybody 
is  unsubstantial  work.  Private  Opinion  may  ingra- 
tiate Public  Opinion  for  years ;  then  suddenly,  a  s-ip 
of  the  tongue  and  a  slap  in  the  face. 

A  nation  spends  millions  of  money  in  diplomatic 
relations,  then  forgets  to  salute  another's  flag,  and 
there  is  war-talk.  A  banquet  is  given  to  the  belles 
and  bullvboys  of  skyhigh  society,  and  for  a  while  the 
small-talk  is  so  witty  that  fig-leaves  turn  to 
glass,  when  to  the  consternation  of  all,  some- 
body blushes  at  the  wrong  time;  and  then  the 
big  talk.  A  Merchants'  Municipal  Club  is  entertain- 
ing a  politician;  platitudes  and  sandwiches  pass 
blithely  in  opposite  directions,  when  one  grocer  calls 
another  Dutchman ;  and  then  there  is  frog-jumping 
back  to  the  puddle. 

All  these  little  contingencies  the  sucker  must  look 
to,  if  he  would  succeed  in  a  world  of  Public  Opinion. 
The  process  is,  evade  the  facts  and  avoid  argument 
Everybody  wishes  to  rise  in  the  world;  there  are  f^w 
who  like  to  tell  truthfully  how  they  have  arisen.  To 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  65 

sympathize  with  the  past  is  to  retard  Progress.  The 
sucker  must  therefore  change  with  the  times  and 
Public  Opinion.  He  is  not  to  boast  of  the  old  eter- 
nal things,  nor  of  anything  that  is  out  of  accord  with 
public  acclaim,  even  though  he  rejoice  privately  in 
the  coarser  deeds  of  that  classic  thing,  the  hu  :\m 
body.  The  following  facts  are  known  to  all  and 
should  never  be  mentioned  in  society :  hats  may 
change  in  style,  but  foreheads  are  much  as  they  were. 
Ostentation  may  vary  from  time  to  time,  but  sim- 
plicity is  always  the  same.  Love  in  a  cottage  may 
lose  its  sentiment,  but  love  in  a  barn  will  go  on  for- 
ever. And  the  blessing  of  this  is  that  worthless 
bawbles  are,  by  Public  Opinion  magically  transformed 
into  strenuous  treasures,  while  the  commonplaces  of 
life  are  made  private,  personal,  obscure,  mystic  and 
sacred. 

There  is  a  funny  little  fellow  who  lives  in  a  mag- 
nificent home,  into  which  he  sneaks  every  day  after 
business  hours.  He  is  a  low  comedian  in  the  comedy 
of  wealth,  and  differs  from  the  common  Biped  with 
the  Coin  in  that  he  does  not  even  understand  what 
luxury  is  and  what  use  his  family  makes  of  it.  He 
does  not  understand  why  he  must  sit  in  an  uncom- 
fortable chair  after  dinner  or  keep  awake  for  visitors. 
He  has  never  studied  Public  Opinion.  His  wife  has 
done  so  in  French,  and  translates  for  him.  Once  he 
was  a  contended  shop-keeper  growing  a  double  chin 
on  $10,000  a  year.  Now  he  is  nervous  and  saggy  on 
$100,000.  Perhaps  he  does  not  wish  to  make  $100,- 
ooo  a  year.  In  his  heart  he  is  still  an  ignorant  little 
shop-keeper  dreaming  of  the  old  homestead  in  Penn- 
sylvania and  the  old  fashioned  ways  of  his  mother. 
His  wife  and  daughter  having  noticed  him  doing  busi- 
ness on  the  $100,000  basis,  temporarily  as  he  thought, 


«<J  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

compelled  him  to  stay  there,  allowing  him  about  $1000 
for  himself.  And  he  acquires  indigestion,  insomnia 
and  softening  of  the  brain  amid  the  alarms  of  his  in- 
come. It  is  almost  a  compliment  to  call  him  a  sucker. 

Then  there  is  a  sucker  that  can  just  afford  to  exist. 
Public  Opinion  causes  him  to  leave  cheaply  on  the 
sly  during  the  odd  moments,  that  he  may  appear  ex- 
travagant at  others.  He  belongs  to  a  club,  but  can- 
not go  there  often,  cause  its  whiskey  has  raised  the 
price  of  conversation.  He  dines  there  once  a  week 
with  the  savings  of  a  canned-bean  diet.  He  is  im- 
pressed with  the  very  practical  theory  that  clothes 
make  the  man.  They  do.  Fortunately  for  many,  they 
do.  After  everything  else  has  failed,  it  is  merciful 
that  clothes  make  the  man.  This  sucker  can  smilingly 
wear  a  gaudy  vest  while  his  stomach  beneath  it  is  full 
of  indigestible  emptiness.  He  has  a  grudge  against 
his  appetite  for  being  a  sort  of  cruelty  to  art.  Ap- 
parently he  eats  for  the  purpose  of  commending  the 
cook;  and  starves  to  buy  a  curio.  Altogether  he  has 
a  good  outside  effect.  Long  live  this  sucker;  and 
when  he  dies,  may  the  pall-bearers  be  the  most  re- 
spectable members  of  the  community. 

Public  Opinion  intimidates  the  sucker  from  think- 
ing— fortunately,  for  the  chances  are  that  he  would 
think  incorrectly  if  he  dared.  Gallantly  he  assents  to 
everything  that  is  demanded  by  the  more  rational 
persons  in  power,  and  acts  as  an  understudy  to  cele- 
brities. At  a  prize-fight,  he  yells  approbation  at  the 
victor,  to  create  the  impression  of  having  bet  money 
on  him.  Seated  beside  the  flimsy  maid,  he  accfords 
with  her  whims,  murmurs  How-true  to  her  numerous 
ecstacies,  and  sneers  with  her  at  all  that  her  young 
soul  has  found  sneerable.  In  the  political  prejudices 
of  her  father  he  joins,  for  fear  of  being  consMered  an 


THE   WORLD  OF   SUCKERS  67 

enemy  to  the  state.  When  the  dear  girl  promises  her- 
self to  him,  he  purchases  an  engagement  ring  whose 
price  he  feels  for  the  next  six  months. 

He  will  relate  the  faults  of  a  friend  that  is  being 
slandered,  laugh  at  a  philosophy  that  is  being  ridic- 
uled, curse  an  unconvicted  wretch  that  is  charged 
with  crime,  and  discard  an  unstylish  necktie  with 
equal  insouciance.  He  will  gorge  on  the  food  that  a 
wealthy  man  praises,  copy  the  clothes  of  spendthrifts, 
clap  his  hands  at  the  play  he  is  told  he  must  see.  He 
will  ignore  the  woman  that  others  call  dowdy,  and 
forsake  a  friend  that  has  quarreled  with  the  major- 
ity ;  doubt  his  religion  when  it  is  discredited  by  a  prodi- 
gal son,  and  assume  an  ideal  when  it  is  popular;  test 
the  favorite  liverpills  of  his  employer,  and  do  many 
other  things  that  go  without  saying,  as  asked  of  him. 

He  should  not  hastily  be  called  a  traitor  to  man- 
hood; he  is  merely  a  martyr  to  Public  Opinion.  All 
his  acts  are  proper,  and,  in  truth,  more  gracefully  car- 
ried out  than  might  seem  from  their  jotty  enumera- 
tion. 

Public  Opinion's  relation  to  morality  is  this:  pro- 
priety recognizes  good  morals  as  widespread. 

Hereinbefore,  propriety  was  defined;  and  here  is  a 
good  opportunity  to  state,  once  for  all,  what  morality 
is  and  what  it  is  not.  Morality  is  a  limitation  of  hu- 
man nature;  it  is  not  the  nature.  On  this  point  re- 
ligion, common  sense  and  common  observation  are  ab- 
solutely at  one.  Morality  issued  from  religion.  Re- 
ligion does  not  assert  that  that  morality  is  inbred  of 
us.  On  the  contrary,  religion  asseverates  and  main- 
tains that  man  is  immoral,  sinful  and  conceived  in 
iniquity.  It  offers  us  Heaven  for  disciplining  our- 
selves as  best  we  can.  This  is  a  stupendous  reward 
for  a  stupendous  task. 


68  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

Public  Opinion  garbles  these  facts  and  pretends 
that  morality  is  an  instinct.  Public  Opinion  could  not 
get  us  into  Heaven  on  such  presumption,  and  frankly 
does  not  claim  to  do  so.  But  it  can  take  us  into  good 
society,  which  is  more  than  religion,  patriotism, 
morality  and  art  can  do.  Most  of  us  are  not  de- 
ceived by  the  statement  that  chastity,  in  man  or  wo- 
man, is  an  instinct,  or  we  should  not  throw  rice  af- 
ter the  happy  pair  going  on  their  honeymoon,  as  they 
say  in  public. 

Howsoever,  he  who  not  only  makes  a  pretence  of 
virtue  but  asserts  that  human  traits  are  virtuous,  is 
an  idealist;  that  is,  a  liar.  Most  likely  he  is  not  the 
idealist  that  he  seems.  He  fears  to  be  otherwise.  He 
may  love  his  wife,  yet  would  not  dare  to  walk  hand 
in  hand  with  her  through  the  streets  of  Public  Opin- 
ion. 


The  Sucker  Who  Tells  the  Truth 

The  truth  must  not  be  lost  altogether. 

As  stated  previously,  the  main  traits  of  the  sucker 
are  simplicity  and  wickedness.  Now  we  have  a  sucker 
that  is  all  simplicity,  which  includes  truth.  We  have 
a  fondness  for  him,  as  he  has  a  pure  soul  and  no 
avarice — viewed  in  the  abstract.  It  requires  dignity 
and  repression  to  tell  the  shooting  of  a  lion  without 
dilating  on  unnecessary  details.  A  man  who  has 
caught  any  wild  thing  is  apt  to  annoy  other  persons 
with  excessive  description.  Likewise,  a  man  who  has 
captured  the  Truth  is  very  prone  to  maWe  his  listen- 
ers nervous  with  the  horrible  story.  And  he  would 
hardly  be  included  Jn  this  book,  but  that,  having  no 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  ,        69 

guile,  he  serves  to  illustrate  one  of  the  sucker's  ele- 
ments in  its  raw  state,  or  native  crudeness. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  when  young  we  are  admon- 
ished of  the  beauty  and  policy  of  truth-telling.  There 
seems  to  go  with  the  advice  an  intimation  that  every- 
thing which  can  be  told  of  is  beautiful.  The'youngster 
follows  these  instructions  almost  to  maturity.  Then 
suddenly  he  beholds  a  blue  light.  He  thought  he  had 
come  to  a  high  place,  but  finds  it  to  be  the  bottom- 
less pit  upside  down.  So  he  formulates  new  relations 
between  this  sthd  that.  Here  and  there  some  fanatic 
is  not  to  be  fooled  that  way.  He  feels  that  he  is  aurif- 
erous with  truth.  He  bestows  truth  as  a  savage  gives 
away  his  unvalued  gold.  He  continues  verily  to  the 
end ;  and  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  the  bitter  end, 
there  is  to  be  found  the  sucker  who  tells  the  truth. 

Few  persons  have  any  notion  of  the  amount  of 
falsehood  humanity  consumes  in  twenty-four  hours. 
If  one  lie  be  theoretically  put  down  as  a  pennyweight, 
it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  we  consume  more  false- 
hood than  bread.  Cheap  as  falsehood  is,  the  supply 
is  always  equal  to  the  demand. 

Not  many  persons  tell  the  truth  when  they  have 
time  to  think  of  something  else.  Not  many  wish  to 
be  told  the  truth  if  it  conflict  with  their  vanity  or 
jostle  against  something  already  blessei  with  their 
approval.  Withal,  there  does  arise,  in  one  community 
or  another,  the  man  who,  not  content  with  thinking 
for  himself,  imagines  that  his  audience  wishes  to 
know  what  he  thinks.  He  is  not  always  to  be  blamed; 
for  occasionally  he  is  asked  a  direct  question  and  in- 
fers that  the  questioner  desires  the  result  of  his 
reasoning  powers. 

If  a  woman  with  a  strange  new  hat  should  ask  this 
sucker  his  opinion  of  it,  he  scrutinizes  it,  while  she, 


70  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

poor  wretch,  fondly  trusts  he  is  holding  back  in  order 
to  let  his  admiration  burst  with  greater  fury.  Then 
he  will  abuse  the  girl's  faith  by  venting  his  sincere 
criticism.  "Do  you  think  I  am  vain?"  she  inquires, 
after  he  has  dubiously  explained  how  his  compre- 
hension of  the  hat  might  be  consistent  with  its  ex- 
cellence in  the  mind  of  some  one  else.  He  replies 
that,  of  course,  she,  like  every  other  normal  person, 
possesses  at  least  some  vanity.  She  pouts.  He  re- 
joins to  the  effect  that  vanity  is  not  reprehensible; 
that  it  is  necessary  to  human  progress.  The  sucker 
is  under  the  delusion  that  he  was  called  upon  to  think, 
while  it  was  merely  intended  of  him  to  say,  In  pro- 
portion with  your  superlative  charms,  your  vanity 
is  practically  nothing;  in  fact,  my  dear  girl,  it  is  folly 
in  you  not  to  possess  a  thousand  times  more  vanity 
than  you  do. 

This  sucker  tells  a  woman  her  age  to  gain  credit 
for  perspicacity.  Perspicacity!  This  word  and  sucker 
were  made  for  each  other. 

Be  it  not  understood  that  women  are  the  only  ones 
that  are  dumbfounded  at  truths.  As  illustrations,  one 
prefers  to  use  women  for  the  picturesque  effect.  If 
bones  were  vanity,  man  would  not  be  any  shorter  than 
woman,  and  might  still  have  a  bone  that  she  has  not: 
that  extra  rib. 

Let  a  man  quarrel  with  another  and  bring  his  plaint 
to  a  friend.  "Now  tell  me,  who  was  wrong,  he  or 
I?"  "Well,"  answers  the  sucker,  "it  seems  to  me  that 
you  both  acted  hastily  in  the  matter.  Of  course  he 
was  wrong  to  be  angry ;  nevertheless  you  might  have 
withheld  that  first  remark  of  yours." 

Without  giving  further  examples,  it  can  be  seen 
that  from  the  flapjacks  of  breakfast  through  the  tur- 
moil of  day  to  the  goodnight  kiss,  a  man  should  be 


THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  71 

on  his  guard  and  not  taint  the  innocence  of  this  life 
with  his  own  scoundrel  private  opinions.  He  should 
award  the  highest  praise  to  every  vanity  that  kneels 
before  him;  and  there  is  where  art  displays  itself: 
to  be  so  versatile  and  give  praise  in  such  varied 
phrase  to  all  that  one  person's  will  not  conflict  with 
anothers  in  the  event  of  a  comparison.  This  is  one 
argument,  and  not  a  bad  one,  against  practical  polyg- 
amy. It  would  either  convict  the  husband  of  duplic- 
ity (rather  multiplicity)  or  it  would  make  women  dull 
and  commonplace. 

Flattery?  Has  any  one  ever  proved  the  existence 
of  a  flatterer.  Truth  to  say,  the  world  is  underes- 
timated and  misunderstood.  It  is  much  better'  than 
most  people  deem.  There  is  a  mistake  between  the 
acts  and  the  heart  of  mankind.  In  its  acts,  mankind 
is  too  often  played  for  a  sucker.  At  heart,  and  in  its 
mind,  it  is  good  and  great. 

The  Sucker  Who  Takes  Advice  on 
a  Certain  Important  Question 

There  comes  to  every  man  a  mood  when  he  asks 
himself  whether  or  not  a  lifetime  can  be  passed  agree- 
ably with  one  woman.  Is  marriage  compatible  with 
two  apparently  compatible  persons?  Are  man  and 
woman  adjustible  for  a  lifelong  intimacy.  Do  they  not 
get  along  best  before  they  understand  each  other  and 
while  they  are  associating  under  false  pretences? 

How  many  times  between  the  years  of  twenty  and 
thirty  will  a  man  and  woman  cling  together  for  dear 
life  and  separate  six  months  afterards?  Suppose  the 
two  had  married.  Horrible  to  contemplate  with  the 


72  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

latest  charmer  on  his  knee.  The  average  person  has 
from  one  to  two  love  affairs,  of  more  or  less  intensity, 
a  year  until  marriage.  The  marriage  is  the  result  of 
a  no  more  cautious  emotion  than  the  others.  In  truth, 
most  men  consider  it  unsportsmanlike  to  use  judg- 
ment in  affairs  of  the  heart. 

Many  people  wish  to  know  why  this  is,  and  there 
are  many  writers  on  the  subject.  Day  after  day,  in 
all  publications  that  dabble  in  philosophy,  are  essays 
and  editorials  telling  why  marriage  is  not  just  what 
it  is  smacked  up  to  be  by  the  kissers,  and  how  it  ends 
in  what  it  is  cracked  up  to  be  by  the  joke-writers. 
Most  of  the  essayists  are  women  and  have  quite  an 
air  of  authority.  The  stamp  of  the  female  viewpoint 
fresh  from  the  matrix  of  wisdom  is  frequently  con- 
vincing, although  the  delivery  of  the  opinion  oft  seems 
to  be  accompanied  by  a  vexed  stamp  of  the  foot,  as 
if  the  lady  is  castegating  the  antics  of  somebody  she 
knows.  Some  of  the  writers  are  men.  They  are  more 
jocular. 

The  blame  for  tousled  matrimony  is  imputed  to 
poorly  trained  men  and  silly  women.  Thus  it  seems 
that  the  men  are  culprits  in  most  cases.  A  few  daring 
writers  have  come  forward  to  say  that  the  men  and 
women  are  all  right,  but  that  the  matrimony  itself 
is  at  fault.  That  is  the  trend  of  criticism  in  all  dis- 
agreeable matters.  When  a  burglary  is  committed, 
there  are  some  critics  who  lay  the  odium  on  the  burg- 
lar; others  blame  the  rich  man  for  possessing  that 
which  can  be  burglarized ;  and  still  others  condemn 
the  prison  into  which  the  burglar  is  put.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  marriage  is  not  a  burglary,  even  though  some 
wisdom-whackers  of  the  darling  sex  gyrate  on  the 
contention  that  a  man  does  ruthlessly  enter  a  girl's 
home  and  carry  her  off  to  a  dingy  domicile  in  order  to 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  73 

make  her  unhappy.  The  women  who  write  thus  are 
in  earnest,  or  the  policy  of  the  paper  is ;  which  is  the 
same  thing.  A  newspaper's  policy  is  as  good  as  a 
woman's  opinion  in  most  instances.  However,  the 
point  is  that  the  girl  readers  keep  a  scrap-book  of 
these  dorothy  editorials,  become  disciples  of  the  writ- 
ers, and  when  the  girls  marry  they  want  a  sucker 
to  conform  to  that  scrap-book. 

The  idea  expressed  by  these  philosophers  with  the 
nude  bosom  vignette  at  the  top  of  their  columns  is 
that  a  man  should  study  his  wife's  moods.  When  she 
is  in  a  snappish  mood,  he  should  be  careful  not  to 
snap  back,  or  she  will  become  snappier;  when  she  is 
in  a  mood  for  pleasure,  he  should  refrain  from  being 
tired  after  his  day's  work.  There  are  many  things 
in  woman  uncomprehended  by  man ;  when  they  take 
a  violent  form,  he  should  become  a  sort  of  poultice  to 
her.  For  all  practical  purposes,  this  is  as  good  as 
understanding  her.  If  he  take  her  rampages  for  reali- 
ties, he  is  an  ass  first  and  a  nondescript  brute  later. 
When  she  is  incomprehensible,  she  is  merely  giving 
him  an  opportunity  to  show  that  he  understands  her. 
If  he  let  her  anger  make  him  angry,  he  is  a  failure  as 
husband,  and  might  as  well  figure  out  the  alimony 
then  and  there. 

Here  is  an  idea  that  might  be  playfully  inserted 
into  this  low-neck  philosophy :  are  not  the  writers 
thereof  responsible  for  much  of  the  mischief?  A  wo- 
man who  follows  these  bed-critics  can  hardly  fail  to 
contract  a  full-blown  case  of  hysterics.  There  are  wo- 
men who  seldom  look  upon  themselves  as  persons; 
they  are  always  women.  They  hold  their  rights  in 
their  hand,  as  a  handkerchief;  and  there  is  no  reason- 
why  they  should  not  when  the  world  is  full  of  suck- 
ers. 


74  THE    WORLD   OP    SUCKERS 

Perhaps  in  prehistoric  times,  at  any  rate  before  the 
Flood,  or  (to  use  an  epoch  of  our  own  country)  before 
the  War,  and,  (as  they  reckon  time  in  San  Francisco) 
before  the  Fire,  man  and  woman  were  sinning.  The 
same  causes,  whatever  they  were,  still  exist.  Taking 
into  consideration  the  printability,  or  unprintability, 
of  certain  words  in  the  public  prints,  also  the  fact 
that  these  writers  are  paid  by  the  week  and  write 
year  after  year,  it  is  plain  why  they  do  not  answer 
the  question  in  a  few  words,  and  how  the  subject 
took  on  a  lengthy  and  overshadowing  disorder  with 
purple  hazes  pierced  by  golden  spires  and  woven 
with  threads  of  scarlet,  which  we  are  assured  Uy 
authors  is  the  appearance  of  dusk.  Howbeit,  from 
the  stagnant  pools  of  truth,  and  the  phosphorescent 
obscurity  above,  emerges  a  young  thinking  lady 
startled  into  all  wisdom  by  the  first  flash  of  red,  bear- 
ing on  her  arm  the  strawberry  mark  of  true  great- 
ness, that  establishes  her  as  the  long-lost  daughter 
of  the  Muse,  and  proceeds  to  argue  the  question 
again.  She  says  it  is  "the  little  things"  of  life  that 
go  to  make  or  mar  it. 

Why  the  little  things?  Or,  to  be  exact,  what  is 
the  big  thing? 

A  multitude  of  voices  in  controversy  will  cause  a 
man  to  forget  the  facts  of  the  case.  Were  it  not  for 
an  occasional  bath  and  a  love  affair,  men  might  even 
forget  that  the  human  body  is  not  the  fashionable  con- 
fection seen  in  the  streets.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  prudery, 
but  a  desire  to  babble  continuously  for  a  monetary 
consideration,  that  makes  so  many  virtuous  ladies  on 
the  editor's  staff  evade  the  vital  point  in  their  printed 
matter.  Ignorance  and  undue  zeal  and  the  expected 
pique  of  their  friends  may  also  have  something  to 
do  with  it. 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  75 

The  truth  is  simply  this:  that  which  causes  marri- 
age also  uncauses  it.  It  leaps  to  it  and  then  it  leaps 
away.  Desire.  On  the  first  occasion,  it  is  called  love ; 
on  the  second,  temptation.  It  pairs  and  then  it  makes 
irreparable.  Infidelity  known  or  suspected  is  at  the 
beginning  of  all  matrimonial  hardship. 

Man  has  more  liberty  than  woman,  and  is  there- 
fore caught  and  blamed  oftener.  He  errs  in  compan- 
ionship with  a  fair  unknown.  He  associates  with  his 
fellowkind  in  the  happy  part  of  a  daredevil.  A  wo- 
man meets  her  friends  under  a  presumption  of  inno- 
cence. Technically  she  is  the  superior  being.  And  it 
is  this  presumed  virtue,  together  with  her  phase  of 
enduring  or  escaping  offspring,  that  makes  her  the  ob- 
ject of  man's  courtesy. 

With  the  advent  of  the  sucker  into  modern  life, 
this  courtesy  took  on  innumerable  variations.  Some 
of  these  assume  that  a  man  should  understand  a  wo- 
man in  all  her  gradations  of  mood.  As  a  result  these 
gradations  have  all  the  hues  of  a  large  box  of  assorted 
pastels,  with  some  ultra-violet  moods  that  the  lady 
herself  does  not  understand.  So  that  when  she  wails 
and  weeps  and  goes  into  a  disheveled  psychology,  the 
idea  is  not  to  glare  at  her  like  a  monster  overhang- 
ing a  sunlit  cliff,  but  utter  such  beautiful  sentiments 
that  she  will  be  led  to  repeat  the  performance  another 
day.  When  she  goes  into  voluptuous  convulsions  at 
finding  one  of  her  own  unrecognized  hairs  on  his  coat, 
he  should  not  stand  aghast,  but  repeat  a  love-scene  of 
his  early  courtship,  until  she  recovers  and  is  strong 
enough  to  accept  the  price  of  a  new  hat.  When,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  wonders  how  she  came  by  those 
scratches  on  her  wrists,  he  should  not  ask  questions, 
but  make  a  witty  remark  on  some  irrelevant  matter. 

Only  the  gentleman  will  do  this;  a  common  fellow 
refuses  to  view  woman  as  a  delicate  mechanism  that 


76  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

must  be  used  in  a  certain  way  or  it  will  go  to  pieces. 
The  manner  of  the  noble  sucker  is,  though,  a  dis- 
paragement to  woman ;  for  he  takes  her  as  a  creature 
without  responsibility.  He  allows  her  to  speak  dis- 
respectfully to  him,  and  interprets  her  words  as  mean- 
ingless. He  treats  her  as  a  baby.  Tell  a  woman  she 
is  a  goddess  and  use  her  intellectually  as  an  infant; 
no  plan  could  be  more  tactful. 

Loving  a  woman  is  segregating  her  from  the  others 
of  her  sex.  She  acquiesces  in  this,  and  lets  the  lover 
know  she  considers  herself  different.  The  majority  of 
women,  like  the  majority  of  everything,  are  alike.  Yet 
every  woman  insists  on  being  not  only  among  the  ex- 
alted majority  but  the  very  paragon  of  those  few ;  she 
wishes  to  be  told  this  often  and  again.  This  is  what 
is  called  wooing  the  wife.  For  it  is  the  dictum  of  the 
dorothy  journalists  that  a  man  should  not  cease  woo- 
ing a  woman  after  marrying  her.  So  the  sucker's 
work  is  laid  out  for  him.  The  cynic  may  say  that  a  wo- 
man who  would  not  consider  herself  won,  after  court- 
ship, but  is  to  be  won  over  again  every  day  of  mar- 
ried life,  must  not  know  her  own  mind  and  should  not 
have  married  at  all.  How  insignificant !  It  is  not  nec- 
essary that  wives  be  settled  in  their  own  minds  that 
they  are  wives.  They  should  be  petted  into  the  belief 
every  day  by  man,  who  has  the  larger  mind,  and  the 
better  memory  for  those  details. 

The  fault  of  some  men  is  that  they  try  to  adapt 
common  sense  to  matrimony,  contrary  to  the  promise 
they  made  during  courtship.  A  common  sense  and 
unsuckerly  sort  of  view  would  judge  that  a  sweet- 
heart is  a  sweetheart  and  a  wife  a  wife,  and  that  the 
lady  should  understand  he  did  not  mean,  could  not 
have  meant,  all  that  tomfoolery  he  whispered  among 
the  sofa  pillows.  Some  reaction  from  the  high-gusted 
phrases  is  inevitable.  To  keep  love  at  its  romantic 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  77 

height  is  a  feat  that  no  woman  has  the  unremitting 
splendor  to  do.  Yet  it  is  said  that  simulation  of  such 
torrid  continuance  is  correct  in  man.  So  the  sucker 
proceeds  in  hope  of  gaining  praise  for  this,  and  he 
ends  at  a  loss  and  in  chagrin. 

Women  are  somewhat  alike  and  are  married  on  that 
assumption.  Cuddling  each  one  into  the  belief  that 
she  is  the  arch-queen  of  her  sex  only  makes  her  crave 
the  privileges  thereof.  What  a  man  really  desires  is 
a  woman,  not  an  arch-queen.  If  she  were  that,  he 
would  relate  the  fact  to  other  women.  But  such  a 
sucker  is  rare  indeed. 

A  woman  cannot  be  judged  by  a  man  until  she  un- 
folds herself  unto  him  in  love.  He  does  not  behold 
her  thoroughly  until  she  has  quarreled  with  him.  He 
understands  her  best  before  he  meets  her.  And  if  he 
will  estimate  her  by  the  latter  process,  that  is,  by 
previous  women,  he  will  not,  on  meeting  and  marrying 
her,  be  disappointed. 

Reformers  and  Their  Followers 

There  must  be  reformers  to  remind  us  of  the  old 
glories  and  to  ease  our  burden  of  inevitable  sin. 

An  oddity  about  reformation  is  that  it  is  bound  to 
make  a  sucker  of  somebody,  either  the  reformer  or 
the  reformer,  whoever  pays  for  it.  In  the  tug-of-war 
between  Reformation  and  Progress,  the  wag  who  cuts 
the  rope  gets  the  most  applause.  The  reformer's  con- 
fidence in  himself  is  the  next  item  of  interest.  When 
one  has  agreed  with  himself  what  ought  to  be  done, 
the  next  thing  seemingly  is  to  get  others  to  do  it.  If 
they  are  reasonable  creatures,  they  will  do  it  soon. 
That  is  the  fascination  about  Socialism :  it  seems  pos- 
sible. A  seeming  possibility  is  the  most  alluring  and 


78  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

elusive  thing  in  the  world.  Absolute  impossibilities, 
such  as  making  a  round  earth  of  a  flat  one,  seizing 
the  thunderbolts  from  Jove,  using  the  ethereal  silence 
as  a  conductor  of  sound,  seeing  through  solid  flesh, 
are  more  profitable.  To  keep  at  the  illustration  of 
Socialism,  it  is  an  ideal,  and,  needs  to  say,  a  pretty 
one.  But,  as  there  never  was  one  ideal  man,  and  as 
there  never  was  one  practical  Socialist,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  a  large  population  would  ever  exercise  the 
ideal  steadfastly  together.  When  you  behold  the  in- 
creasing number  of  Socialists,  you  may  ask,  Why  not? 
As  when  you  observe  the  increasing  number  of  mil- 
lionaires, you  may  ask,  Why? 

It  is  this  ideal  in  our  natures  that  makes  a  sucker 
of  the  Unpaid  Reformer.  There  are  some  ideas  and 
ideals  that  you  think  you  can  get  rid  of,  but  cannot. 
They  scamper  off  like  a  kicked  cur,  and  then  sit  down 
and  blink  at  you  lovingly  from  the  distance. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  reformers:  those  that  re- 
form for  money ;  those  that  reform  for  love ;  and  those 
whose  long,  flexible,  pernicious  noses  enter  slickly  into 
other  persons'  private  affairs. 

Of  the  first  we  have  little  to  say ;  they  are  not  rele- 
vant here.  They  do  not  come  under  the  title  of  this 
volume.  They  convert  their  impractibilities  into  cash, 
are  jolly  fellows  with  fine  wines  and  good  cigars  and 
make  suckers  out  of  anybody  that  will  contribute  to 
their  cause. 

We  can  surmise  why  a  man  who  sells  a  wholesome 
substitute  for  a  popular  evil  would  like  to  have  the 
evil  eradicated.  And  we  can  discern  why  a  church 
wages  its  warning  against  divorce,  for  divorced  peo- 
ple are  not  good  advertisements  of  the  blessings  ad- 
ministered in  the  first  place.  Both  the  above  are  what 
might  be  termed  Paid  Reformers,  and  are  not  suckers. 
Regarding  the  curious  tail-smeller  who  would  like  to 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  79 

see  the  world  pure,  stiff  and  unhappy,  it  is  hard  to  say 
which  is  the  greatest  sucker,  himself  or  his  tolerator. 

The  chucklehead  sometimes  known  as  the  dress  re- 
former is  usually  unpaid.  He  seldom  has  a  substitute 
to  sell.  Say  that  he  stays  up  late  at  night  meditating 
about  the  corset  .  In  his  eyes,  the  corset  is  about  as 
evil  as  divorce.  He  wishes  to  see  women  stripped  of 
their  corsets,  and  very  likely  would  be  glad  to  perform 
the  act  himself.  But  while  he  would  do  away  with 
these  mainstays  of  the  female  unreform  divine,  Pro- 
gress laces  them  more  tightly,  which  enrages  the  man 
of  simple  habits.  He  descants  upon  the  corseted  wo- 
man as  an  indecent  exposition  of  loveliness. 

The  philosophy  of  the  thing  is  always  appropriate. 
For  some  profound  reason,  the  protuberances  of  the 
human  body  are  deemed  unbespeakable  in  proper  dis- 
course, while  the  depressions,  or  slender  parts,  and 
the  joints,  come  under  no  such  ban.  For  instance,  a 
woman  will  quite  frankly  refer  to  her  ankle;  hardly 
ever  to  the  calf  above  it.  The  knee  again  is  also  fre- 
quently and  sincerely  referred  to.  A  woman  will 
speak  of  her  neck,  but  not  of  her  bosom ;  of  her  waist, 
but  not  of  her  hips ;  and  so  forth  and  so  on.  The  poet 
himself  never  mentions  a  woman's  nose,  the  most 
prominent  part  of  her  face.  One  readily  sees  the  lines 
along  which  the  dress  reformer  is  working.  The  cor- 
set brings  out  these  protuberances,  making  them  un- 
duly conspicuous,  so  that  people  are  prone  to  notice 
them  and  use  them  in  conversation,  unexpectedly. 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  were  women  as 
beautifully  appareled  as  they  are  now.  And  it  may  be 
said  of  the  dress  reformer  (judging  him  by  his  unpre- 
possessing exterior)  that  had  he  not  gazed  too  curi- 
ously into  the  windows  of  her  underwear  shops,  he 
would  never  know  how  it  was  done;  never  would 
have  suspected  that  reform  is  necessary.  As  he  works 


80  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

from  sheer  malice,  he  is  a  nondescript  in  this  chapter. 

Our  interest  is  directed  upon  that  sucker,  the  Un- 
paid Reformer,  who  graciously  and  gratuitously  offers 
to  hurl  back  the  course  of  evolution.  He  essays  not 
the  easy  task  of  whipping  mankind  along  its  progress- 
ive paths,  but  boldly  steps  before  a  runaway,  mad- 
dened custom,  and  cries,  Whoa — stop !  He  has  an  an- 
cient and  honorable  ideal.  His  predecessors  have 
failed.  For  thousands  of  years  they  toiled  at  its 
seeming  possibility,  always  feeling  success  at  hand, 
and  he  desires  to  put  this  visionary  success  into  full 
force  and  effect  immediately.  An  ideal  is  that  which 
might  exist  if  other  things  would  not,  and  which  could 
not  if  they  didn't.  This  is  not  plain,  but  is  a  suffi- 
cient description  of  an  ideal,  which  is  not  a  definite 
thing  anyway. 

Suppose  that  a  botanist  should  desire  to  make  a 
larger  and  showier  blossom  of  a  wild  daisy;  not  that 
there  is  anything  in  the  nature  of  the  daisy  to  suggest 
a  change,  but  the  botanist  inbreeds  it  to  realize  his 
ideal :  that  is,  he  creates  a  novelty  in  a  garden  by  de- 
stroying something  that  grew  otherwise  in  the  wild. 
The  same  trick  might  be  performed  with  man  and  wo- 
man, if  they  could  be  kept  in  a  garden.  God  failed  at 
this ;  but  perhaps  the  modern  reformer  has  better  ma- 
terial to  his  use. 

There  is  some  difficulty  in  analyzing  the  Unpaid 
Reformer,  because  there  is  no  telling  when  some  so- 
ciety or  business  man  will  take  him  up  and  pay  him  a 
salary  as  a  lecturer  or  as  an  officer  in  a  corporation 
that  sells  his  ideas  to  suckers.  And  there  are  any 
number  of  celebrities  that  are  expected  to  uncork  a 
little  reform  every  now  and  then  to  please  their  con- 
gregations and  constituents  and  admirers.  Moreover, 
when  a  public  man  makes  a  statement  for  publication, 
he  is  afraid  to  say,  Let  the  people  do  what  they  wish. 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  81 

The  people  would  not  like  it.  They  would  rather  be 
forbidden  their  pleasure  and  then  do  it. 

So,  then,  if  the  reformer  make  his  living,  or  adds  to 
his  livelihood,  by  his  doctrine,  he  is  not  a  sucker.  His 
followers  are. 

Respectively  he  urges  us  to  abstain  from  intoxicat- 
ing drink,  to  refrain  from  tobacco,  to  eschew  profane 
words  from  our  vocabulary,  to  eliminate  certain  inno- 
cent letters  from  the  spelling  of  other  words,  to  dis- 
dain seductive  women,  to  forbear  the  use  of  opiates, 
to  renounce  wagers  on  the  efforts  of  horses  in  race  and 
on  the  eccentricities  of  a  set  of  dice  and  our  skill  at 
cards,  to  look  away  from  divorce  as  a  remedy  for  mat- 
rimonial contests,  to  prevent  war,  to  be  kind  to  the 
common  people,  to  expunge  millionaires,  to  avoid 
bribery,  to  exterminate  amorous  literature,  to  extir- 
pate luxury,  to  averuncate  Sunday  baseball,  to  sup- 
press prize-fights,  to  cease  gossiping,  to  quit  hugging 
in  the  dance,  to  beautify  cities,  to  keep  farmers  on 
their  farms,  to — to — to — to  the  Devil  with  him  !  There 
are  on  his  mind  a  number  of  other  matters,  which, 
if  carried  out,  would  make  this  world  a  Paradise  and 
we  would  not  have  to  die  in  order  to  get  to  Heaven. 
Then  the  question  remains,  Are  we  unhappy  because 
we  do  not  relinquish  these  evils  or  because  we  cannot 
get  enough  of  them? 

Should  we  follow  the  reformer's  advice,  and  not 
spend  our  income  on  these  things,  the  millionaires 
would  get  all  the  money  that  we  now  waste  on  our- 
selves. 

Now,  there  may  be  those  who  do  not  believe  the  stor- 
ies of  Adam  and  Eve.  But  nobody  doubts  that,  given 
Adam  and  Eve  and  the  apple  tree  and  the  forbiddance 
to  eat,  what  would  happen  would  be  exactly  what  is 
related  did  happen.  One  thing  in  the  world^  that  two 
persons  should  not  do,and  they  did.  Nowadays  there 


82  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

are  thousands  of  things  that  we  should  not  do,  and 
millions  of  people  to  do  them.  The  sincere  reformer 
may  be  an  innocent  sucker  (if  unpaid)  and  yet  it  is 
incredible  that  he  be  honest,  for  he  is  either  trying  to 
make  millions  of  people  do  what  he  cannot  do  himself, 
or  he  desires  the  world  to  conform  to  his  own  personal 
defects  and  idiosyncracies.  He  who  would  have  us 
vegetariains  because  he  is,  omits  the  three  most  im- 
portant points :  that  he  is  the  product  of  a  race  that 
might  be  monkeys  were  it  not  for  meat-eating;  that 
we  wish  to  give  posterity  the  same  benefits  we  re- 
ceived ;  that  we  regale  ourselves  contentedly  on  roast 
beef.  The  advantage  of  drinking  whiskey  is  not  so 
apparent;  yet  it  must  be  there,  for  it  is  a  part  of  our 
racial  education.  Belief  in  it  must  remain  a  matter 
of  faith. 

The  reformer  that  would  have  the  wrhole  world  as 
brothers  could  never  have  had  a  brother  himself. 
Those  folks  that  have  had  real  blood-brothers  natur- 
ally prefer  friends.  The  ordinary  brother  breaks  his 
father's  heart,  disappears  and  comes  back  to  break 
the  will.  He  makes  a  better  down-trodden  member 
of  the  masses  than  a  brother. 

The  reformer  does  not  recognize  the  fact  that  peo- 
ple are  as  hypocritical  as  he  is.  They  have  certain 
ideals  and  certain  working  principles.  The  ideals  may 
be  read  in  books ;  the  working  principles  are  what- 
ever you  see  with  all  your  faculties  of  observation. 
Whatever  has  been  will  be,  in  itself  and  as  part  of  all 
that  has  existed  with  it.  And  even  such  a  trivial  mat- 
ter as  gambling  could  not  be  destroyed  without  de- 
molishing humanity.  The  far  past  was  not  as  pure 
as  reformers  would  have  us  believe.  Attention  should 
rather  be  given  to  the  complicated  surroundings  that 
are  ours  now  than  the  natural  life  which  is  errone- 
ously accredited  to  the  simple-machined  but  not  sim- 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  83 

ple-moraled  people  of  ancient  times.  Why  go  back 
to  rock  the  empty  cradle  of  the  human  race,  whose 
bloody  infant  still  stinks  in  the  darkness  of  history? 

One  of  the  most  delightful  of  games  is  Leaping  at 
Conclusions.  That  is,  from  the  standpoint'  of  a  spec- 
tator. The  idea  is  to  select  your  conclusion;  then 
leap.  The  fine  point  of  the  game  is  to  perform  with 
that  utter  abandon  that  comes  from  long  experience 
at  self-deception.  The  beginner  may  practice  by 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  sun,  and  is  then  to 
jump  over  his  own  shadow.  By  turning  half  way 
round  during  his  course  through  the  air,  he  will  find 
upon  alighting  on  his  feet,  that  his  shadow  is  behind 
him,  proving  that  he  has  leapt  over  it.  This  done, 
he  should,  in  order  not  to  expose  himself  as  a  sucker, 
organize  a  society  for  the  prevention  of  people  who 
think  otherwise,  make  himself  chairman  of  the  execu- 
tive committee,  and  he  has  a^salary  for  life. 

To  begin  a  reform  of  the  world,  we  need  not  under- 
stand it.  All  that  we  need  understand,  a  small  mat- 
ter, is  Heaven.  Keep  Heaven  in  mind  and  hammer 
the  world  into  shape  accordingly.  Beyond  this,  it  is 
advisable  not  to  hammer  the  world  in  a  too  explosive 
part  of  its  temperament. 

Unpaid  reformers  of  this  age  are  not  such  suckers 
as  were  their  brethren  of  past  centuries,  and  have  a 
much  easier  time  of  it.  Why,  come  to  think  of  it,  re- 
formers themselves  are  a  degenerate  lot  when  com- 
pared with  the  self-sacrificing  spirits  of  old.  Amid 
far  less  danger,  our  reformers  are  less  heroic  than 
those  who  once  antagonized  the  powerful  agents  of 
sin.  Formerly,  the  sinful  potentates  levied  their  taxes, 
banquetted  one  another  and  ignored  the  reformers  ex- 
cept to  poison  or  behead  them  now  and  then.  The 
wicked  ones,  some  of  them  clever  and  brave,  passed 
into  fame  instead  of  dying  virtuous  and  forgettable  as 


84  THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

was  their  plain  duty.  Sometimes  of  old,  a  great  and 
righteous  and  resounding  protest  also  passed  into  his- 
tory. Today  it  goes  into  pictures  and  paragraphs.  As 
a  nation,  knowing  how  to  laugh,  we  can  ridicule  any- 
thing from  a  saint  to  a  Socialist.  Upon  failure,  the 
defeated  reformer  saves  his  head  and  goes  back  to  his 
trade  or  becomes  a  Chautauquan,  whatever  that  is. 

What  is  the  matter  with  the  world?  It  has  more 
people,  more  money,  more  books,  more  philosophy, 
more  religion,  more  of  everything  (except  pure  food) 
than  it  ever  had.  The  subject  in  parenthesis  might 
lead  one  to  inquire  if  food  sweetened  with  corn  syrup 
and  preserved  with  benzoate  of  soda  be  not  the  cause 
of  all  our  ills.  Still  there  was  wickedness  and  wail- 
ing in  the  world  even  before  the  cow  had  a  competitor 
in  the  chemist.  So  we  must  look  elsewhere  for  the  evil 
ingredient  of  our  natures.  There  are  so  many  else- 
wheres  that  the  search  is  difficult.  Modern  civiliza- 
tion makes  a  spectacular  haystack  in  which  to  con- 
ceal Truth's  needle.  And  we  have  all  kinds  of  search- 
ers, from  the  plutocrat  who  says,  "To  hell  with  the 
needle,"  to  the  Anarchist  that  says,  "Burn  down  the 
haystack." 

Should  you  call  this  the  Age  of  Gold,  the  Age  of 
Stocks  and  Bonds,  the  Age  of  Machinery,  the  Age 
of  Advertising,  the  Age  of  Trusts,  the  Age  of  Injus- 
tice, the  Age  of  Impiety,  the  Age  of  Frauds,  the  Age 
of  Electricity,  the  Age  of  Wonders,  the  Age  of  Sci- 
ence, the  Age  of  Commercialism,  you  would  doubtless 
have  a  large  following  in  any  case.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  what  the  pundit  of  five  hunded 
years  hence  will  call  us.  He  may  incline  to  one  of 
the  phrases  above,  or  another.  At  that,  there  may 
arise  another.  The  country  may  change.  We  shall, 
unless  we  are  perfect,  we  shall  change.  Of  course, 
there  are  wealthy  men  that  say  we  are  already  per- 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  85 

feet;  perfection  of  conditions  rendered  themselves 
possible.  There  are  even  suckers  that  believe  this; 
and  show  it  with  millions  of  votes. 

It  may  be  asserted  then,  that,  while  the  refor- 
mer is  a  sucker,  he  is  a  most  valuable  one;  for  he 
keeps  honor  alive,  while  he  himself  becomes  weak  in 
the  giblets.  Not  everybody  is  capable  of  being  re- 
formed. You  might  be  able  to  reform  a  drunkard,  for 
he  may  have  brains ;  but  you  cannot  reform  a  sucker, 
because  he  becomes  angry  when  you  request  him  to 
think. 

If  there  ever  was  a  sucker  that  looks  to  be  just  what 
he  is,  it  is  the  Unpaid  Reformer.  He  is  very  sad.  At 
first  he  was  valiant;  then  he  seemed  to  have  torn  his 
hope  into  little  bits  and  thrown  them  into  the  waste- 
basket.  Never  trust  a  reformer  that  laughs.  He  can 
laugh  because  he  is  sure  that  some  thousands  of  pay- 
ing suckers  have  faith  in  him. 


The  Greatest  Sucker  of  All 

The  proof  of  courage  is  to  die  laughing. 

He  is  sometimes  called  the  Dead  Game  Sport.  He 
would  say  Yes,  if  a  lion  challenged ;  he  is  afraid  to  say 
No  to  a  mouse.  He  does  everything  that  is  asked  of 
him.  He  is  played  for  a  sucker  all  the  time.  It  is 
part  of  his  business.  One  day  he  is  performing  the 
autopsy  over  a  dead  sure  thing;  the  next,  he  requires 
assistance  of  the  bar-keeper  to  count  his  money.  He 
is  so  generous  he  is  proud  of  having  bought  every 
dream  on  the  market.  He  is  all  kinds  of  a  sucker. 
He  is  the  whole  index.  He  is  so  imbued  with  the  pride 
of  being  a  good  loser  that  he  makes  failure  heroic. 
His  victory  consists  in  having  survived.  He  himself, 


86  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

with  everything  taken  from  him,  is  unconquered. 
After  being  worsted,  he  allows  anybody  (even  his 
swindler)  to  pat  him  on  the  back  and  tell  him  to  be 
game.  Where  other  men  have  been  weakened  by  re- 
gret, downed  with  remorse,  shamed  by  exposure, 
beaten  by  a  mob,  shot  by  a  husband,  imprisoned,  ex- 
iled, executed,  he  comes  forth  with  a  smile,  still  to 
go  ahead  as  a  Dead  Game  Sport. 

It  is  the  spirit  of  the  thing  that  keeps  the  Dead  Game 
Sport  going.  He  admires  a  man  who  plays  a  shrewd 
game,  and  he  rejoices  in  the  game  most  of  all. 
Whether  he  is  for  the  while  a  good  loser  or  a  good 
spender,he  is  always  an  exuberant  good  fellow. 

He  is  a  gambler  in  all  matters,  life  and  death. 
Heaven  and  Hell,  riches  and  poverty,  love  and  trag- 
edy. He  is  the  Biped  with  the  Coin,  and,  when  he 
has  lost  it,  treats  the  crowd  with  his  last  dollar.  They 
wish  him  good  luck,  and  the  wish  comes  true.  Joy- 
fully he  plays  his  friends  and  strangers  for  suckers* 
and  they  forgive  him  because  he  acted  without  mal- 
ice and  can  tell  a  good  story.  He  always  votes  for  a 
good  fellow;  he  cares  nothing  for  public  economy,  in 
fact,  hating  economy  of  all  sorts.  When  cast  off  by 
a  woman  whom  he  has  emblazoned  with  pleasure,  he 
rips  the  pathos  into  ridicule.  As  a  lover  he  does  all 
that  is  asked  of  him  down  to  the  dim-twinkling  beauty 
of  his  last  dollar,  and  then  says  good-bye  like  a  gen- 
tleman. He  is  an  optimist  to  the  very  last  and  final 
resort,  from  which  he  walks  gaily  home.  There  is 
but  one  thing  that  arouses  his  pessimism  and  that  is 
a  bad  cigar.  He  is  always  on  the  lookout  for  happi- 
ness, but,  unlike  others,  he  sings  and  laughs  on  the 
way.  He  is  subservient  to  Public  Opinion,  always 
accomplishing  his  purpose  in  the  most  expensive  and 
approved  style.  He  would  give  a  beggar  his  last 
coin,  partly  because  he  does  not  know  how  to  refuse 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  87 

and  partly  because  somebody  might  be  looking  and 
judge  that  he  knows  too  well.  Occasionally  he  is 
sucker  enough  to  tell  the  truth ;  usually,  though,  the 
others  are  suckers  for  taking  him  seriously. 

Now  and  then  he  goes  on  a  carouse  from  glass  to 
glass  and  becomes  so  piratically  jocund  that  he  is 
arrested  by  officers  of  the  peace.  They  find  him  suf- 
fering from  the  hallucination  that  he  is  a  civil  war  at 
midnight.  He  does  not  appear  in  the  police  court 
next  day,  for  he  has  given  somebody  a  handful  of 
money  with  the  request,  Fix  it  for  me.  This  is  done. 

He  is  also  the  man  who  wants  to  go  to  Heaven,  and, 
at  times,  is  enthusiastic  about  it.  Most  of  his  heaven- 
ward efforts  consist  of  buying  tickets  for  charity  ba- 
zaars and  handing  something  to  the  pastor  when  they 
meet  on  the  street.  Admiring  virtue,  he  is  not  sure 
that  vice  is  as  bad  as  reported.  He  considers  Hell's 
Landlord  a  devil  of  a  fellow  whose  blackness  is  put 
on  with  burnt  cork.  In  all,  the  Dead  Game  Sort  is 
so  artless  and  childlike  and  captivating  that,  like  the 
chief  of  all  breakers  of  the  law,  he  attracts  the  most 
sympathy.  So  that,  when  he  dies,  the  solemn  priest 
can  do  no  less  than  shed  a  real  tear  and,  calling  upon 
the  Great  Mediator,  moan,  O  Master,  fix  it  for  him. 

. 

Something  for  the  Future 

The  sucker  should  be  improved  if  possible. 

There  is  a  likely  class  of  yearners  that  oddly  enough 
has  not  been  developed  by  this  money-making  epoch. 
These  would-be  suckers  are  all  around  us,  ready  for 
the  hand  of  the  promoter. 

The  facts  are  these :  litigation  is  an  expensive  pro- 
ceeding. Sometimes  parties  with  the  most  interest- 
ing cases  have  not  the  means  with  which  to  prose- 


88  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

cute  their  claims.  Sometimes  the  criminal  trial  of  a 
scapegrace  will  bankrupt  his  wealthy  family.  A  di- 
vorce-court experience  is  frequently  a  large  and  un- 
merited expense  to  the  husband  and  an  ordeal  upon 
the  nerves  of  the  wife.  A  glance  at  the  calendars 
of  our  courts  will  find  that  the  litigants  represent  a 
large  part  of  the  community  as  regards  numbers  and 
wealth  and  social  position. 

These  litigants  are  important  enough  to  demand 
legislation.  Court  rooms  are  crowded,  and,  in  some 
cases,  overcrowded  with  spectators.  Why  not  have 
passed  a  law  giving  the  litigants  a  right  to  charge  a 
price  of  admittance  to  the  court  room?  Thousands 
of  suckers  pay  from  fifty  cents  to  two  dollars  at  the 
theater  to  look  at  a  woman  that  has  passed  through 
a  notorious  divorce.  Usually  her  acting  on  the  stage 
is  not  as  interesting  as  it  was  in  the  court  room.  Her 
play  is  some  weak  dramatic  chicanery  gotten  up  merely 
as  an  excuse  to  exhibit  the  fair  notorine.  None  of 
the  audience  listen  to  the  drama;  they  but  watch  the 
lady's  theatrical  graces  and  grievance  in  the  memory 
of  her  recent  escapades.  These  same  suckers  be- 
sieged and  invaded  the  court  room,  gasping  with  po- 
licemen and  bailiffs  to  get  a  seat.  They  would  surely 
pay  twenty-five  cents  or  a  dollar  to  enter  like  ladies 
and  gentlemen.  The  parties  to  the  suit  could  divide 
the  proceeds  to  pay  their  costs.  In  a  criminal  pro- 
cedure, the  state  would  get  its  half  for  the  jury.  On 
days  of  routine,  a  low  price  would  be  asked.  When 
the  witness  is  expected  to  give  scandalous  testimony, 
at  least  a  hundred  suckers  would  pay  a  dollar.  Season 
tickets,  entitling  the  holder  to  the  whole  course  of 
trial  would  be  issued  at  reduced  rates. 

The  plan  may  have  its  imperfections.  What  cus- 
tom has  not?  The  more  celebrated  witnesses,  such 
as  society  leaders,  already  invested  with  public  inter- 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  89 

est,  might  take  advantage  of  their  position  to  elabor- 
ate upon  the  cause  of  divorce  and  make  it  as  interest- 
ing as  possible,  attracting  the  largest  and  most  fash- 
ionable audience.  Some  of  them  might  be  con- 
strained, in  view  of  the  dramatic  effect,  to  intensify 
the  truth  even  more  than  at  present.  Some  ,of  the  fair 
plaintiffs,  with  an  unfairness  that  could  readily  be 
blamed  upon  the  press  agent,  might  quadruple  the 
facts  and  make  the  defendant  as  loathesome  as  pos- 
sible, to  delight  the  crowd  and  bring  them  again  next 
day.  Yet  why  have  mercy  on  suckers? 

Notoriety  brings  out  some  of  the  most  startling 
things  from  that  gray  conglomeration  with  flamboyant 
functions,  the  human  mind.  Hero  worship  is  mild 
when  compared  with  scandal-gazing.  Hero  worship 
is  wholesome.  A  hero  is  exhilerating.  But  the  en- 
thusiasm he  causes  is  far  less  than  the  rush  to  hear 
a  dawling  queen  of  the  fashionables  narrate  the  de- 
generacies of  her  husband,  and  weep  while  he  tells 
of  her  wickedness.  A  hero  is  disappointingly  modest, 
and  looks  like  anybody  else.  Quite  the  other  way  with 
the  heroine  of  a  divorce.  She  is  suddenly  drawn  from 
the  imperious  modesty  of  her  reputation  into  a  flaunt- 
ing saturnalia  of  evidence.  The  very  hem  of  her  gown 
seems  to  trail  from  the  stifling  court-room  back  into 
the  yellow  brilliance  of  Hell.  She  speaks,  acts,  sighs, 
draws  herself  up,  swoons,  thrills,  languishes,  horri- 
fies, and  goes  through  a  performance  of  the  finest 
technique,  that  could  never  be  equalled  on  the  stage. 
Her  hands,  with  diamonds  and  emeralds  duskily 
gleaming  under  black  silk  gloves,  move  hither  and 
thither  like  humming-birds.  Her  phrases  come  with 
a  breath  of  lilacs.  And  the  crowd  leans  eagerly  to 
hear  just  what  did  happen  at  the  Seven  Mile  House. 

The  court-room  is  not  limited  to  the  morals  of  the 
stage.  There  is  no  melodramatic  subterfuge  nor  cul- 


90  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

turing  of  situations  by  a  fourth-rate  dramatist.  The 
scene  does  not  end  just  as  the  excitement  begins.  The 
lawyer's  curiosity  and  his  forefinger  are  cleared  for 
action,  and  he  does  not  falter  until  the  judge  inter- 
venes, and  even  then  curiosity  and  the  forefinger  fight 
for  their  lives.  The  lawyer  and  his  client  and  the 
crowd  want  to  hear  more  about  it.  This  is  not  done 
on  the  stage.  There  there  is  a  commonplace  kiss,  the 
curtain  drops,  and  all  is  over. 

As  it  now  is,  the  scandal-sucker  gets  the  court  play 
free.  It  is  the  only  performance  that  he  gets  for 
nothing.  And  why  should  he? 


The  Idealist  and  Reader  of  Fidion 

It  may  seem  hammering  the  metal  too  thin  with 
the  statement  that  fiction-reading  is  related  to  suck- 
ism.  And  yet,  this  chapter  will  prove  the  relation  and 
more :  that  romantic  literature  prepares  the  way  for 
the  frauds  of  life.  The  effect  of  literature  on  life  has 
never  been  estimated.  It  is  vast.  Let  us  investigate. 

The  first  question  is,  Why  should  a  girl  on  a  porch 
down  in  Pasadena  be  interested  in  what  a  man  at  a 
desk  in  Penobscot  writes  about  Nobody?  The  hero 
never  lived;  everything  that  is  written  of  his  doings 
is  false.  He  is  an  ideal  Nobody  walking  through  a 
hundred  thousands  words. 

The  next  question  is,  Why  is  he  ideal?  And  then, 
Why  should  the  reader  care  whether  this  inexistent 
hero  should  rescue  or  not  rescue  an  inexistent  heroine, 
arrive  or  not  arrive  at  a  scene  in  time  to  prevent  an 
inexistent  villain  from  performing  a  destruction  of 
mere  phraseology?  Why  be  interested  in  the  mar- 
riage, infidelities  and  separation  of  nobodies?  It  is 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  91 

queer  that  anybody  should  pore  over  Nobody's  com- 
plications with  Nothing. 

These  questions  might  be  answered  precariously  as 
follows :  The  girl  on  the  porch  enjoys  following  the 
imagination  of  the  author,  in  the  belief  that  she  is 
imagining  the  scenes  herself;  also,  taking  them  as  real, 
she  likes  to  see  things  done,  without  the  trouble  of 
doing  them ;  thirdly,  she  fancies  that  she  herself  is  the 
heroine  of  surpassing  beauty,  incomparable  devotion 
and  transcendent  virtue. 

This  is  just  what  suckers  do.  They  pay  for  the  priv- 
ilege of  imagination.  They  glorify  their  own  import- 
ance for  a  while,  and  then  lay  the  fiction  aside.  It  is 
not  truly  imagination;  it  is  delusion.  Lunacy  is  nei- 
ther imagination  nor  genius.  Only  when  the  genius 
is  a  delusion  do  its  possessors  admit  that  thin  bound- 
ary line. 

The  price  and  the  time  given  to  the  book  are  not 
much  loss.  The  contagion  of  the  reader's  mind  with 
the  ideal  is  a  calamity.  It  sickens  his  wisdom  and 
infects  that  of  other  people. 

There  is  in  life  altogether  too  much  courtesy  to- 
wards vice.  Crime  shelters  itself  with  a  certain  ideal 
that  mankind  is  loth  to  shatter.  And  this  is  because 
literature  has  fooled  us  into  thinking  that  the  ideal 
has  impregnated  a  large  part  of  our  action.  There  is 
altogether  too  much  politeness  in  literature.  Because 
a  hero  and  heroine  enter  a  scene  that  calls  for  sym- 
pathy and  admiration,  the  author  wishes  us  to  infer 
that  every  other  act  of  those  two  lives  are  worthy  of 
sympathy  and  admiration.  In  the  course  of  time  our 
minds  become  literary.  The  words  have  made  an  im- 
pression on  our  thought;  they  have  rousted  out  the 
real  and  squatted  a  fiction.  So  that  men  give  the 
world  credit  for  more  ideal  than  is  its  assessable  prop- 
erty; and  the  tax-collector  has  a  bad  time. 


92  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

The  ideals  remain  in  the  mind  and  take  the  place 
of  real  memories.  When  a  man  wishes  to  give  an 
opinion  he  draws  unwittingly  on  these  ideals.  He 
acts  in  an  ideal  way  on  rare  occasions  and  certainly 
with  a  small  proportion  of  the  beast  and  spirit  that 
he  is. 

Most  men  do  not  think  for  themselves;  for  some 
purposes  one  is  almost  inclined  to  say  it  were  better 
that  there  be  no  thought  at  all  than  that  the  few  think 
for  the  many.  For  the  many  become  savage  when 
they  discover  what  they  have  done. 

Now,  evolution  may  be  a  pretty  good  theory;  yet 
it  does  not  show  how  man  lost  such  a  useful  and  or- 
namental thing  (of  which  when  possessing  he  must 
have  been  justly  proud)  his  tail.  With  innumerable 
uses  for  his  tail  every  day,  man  gets  along  the  best  he 
can  without  it,  while  civilization  gives  its  well-dentis- 
tried  smile  of  satsfaction.  Of  all  this,  the  fiction  hero 
knows,  or  seems  to  know,  nothing.  The  characters  of 
fiction  are  not  God's  characters  with  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  One  character  is  good,  and  evil  is  the 
other.  The  novel-writer  must  include  the  serpent 
(the  villain)  in  his  garden  of  love ;  but  his  Adam  and 
Eve  do  not  bite. 

Fiction  thus  gives  us  what  is  given  to  all  suckers, 
a  sentimental  delusion ;  makes  the  readers  believe  in 
their  own  greatness  and  purity.  Like  politics,  it 
soothes  the  people  into  an  insensibility  of  their  wrongs 

On  this  account,  fiction  is  responsible  for  most  de- 
ceptions of  the  world ;  for  it  is  the  ideals  spread  by  fic- 
tion that  enable  villains  to  impose  upon  suckers. 

Ask  a  farmer  for  information  about  apples,  and  he 
will  give  the  facts  of  his  orchard.  Good  seasons  and 
bad,  growth  and  failure,  effects  of  wind  and  rain  and 
pest,  and  the  average  expectation  per  acre.  Question 
a  man  concerning  mankind,  and  he  will  not  recollect 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  93 

facts,  but  hearsay  and  literature.  He  will  become  elo- 
quent; take  his  little  ideal-squirter  and  spray  the  air 
with  a  perfumed  phantom  of  description. 

It  is  the  ideal  that  causes  all  the  dissatisfaction  in 
life.  People  are  tempted  by  ideal  representation  and 
find  they  are  not  getting  it.  They  hang  on  to  his  fals- 
ity and  are  discontented  with  their  real  selves  and  real 
fellows.  Fraud  begins  with  an  ideal ;  ideals  have  ended 
in  bloodshed. 

When  a  man  goes  into  politics,  or  religion,  or  en- 
deavors to  raise  a  sum  of  money,  his  first  act  is  to 
promulgate  a  set  of  ideals  nowise  related  to  his  project 
except  to  attract  the  necessary  number  of  suckers. 
The  ideal  brings  him  fame  and  money ;  he  gives  the 
ideals  fame.  The  moment  a  man  desires  something, 
he  becomes  an  orator.  Whether  he  wants  to  fill  a  bal- 
lot-box, a  collection-box,  or  any  other  kind  of  a  box, 
he  pleads  with  the  sentiments  of  fiction.  He  makes, 
declarations  he  knows  are  impossible  of  carriage.  He 
begins  in  the  ideal ;  he  completes  his  work  in  reality, 
schism,  selfishness,  quarrels  and  anger.  Heroic  ideal 
abetted  the  malefactor. 

The  main  characteristic  of  fiction  is  that  it  directs 
the  attention  upon  two  persons  who  are  well  grounded 
in  all  the  laws  of  morality,  propriety  and  good  taste. 
The  author  cannot  give  them  individual  wisdom,  not 
possessing  any  himself,  or  fears  to  give  what  he  does 
possess.  Sometimes  there  is  an  infraction  of  moral 
law,  but  the  intimation  is  that  this  is  the  only  instance 
in  the  person's  life.  Breaches  of  propriety  and  taste 
are  never  made  into  any  other  than  a  humorous  book, 
to  counterbalance  which  indiscretions,  the  character 
is  made  rigidly  chaste. 

Life  is  made  up  of  meetings  and  separations;  fic- 
tion, of  separations  and  meetings.  In  the  latter,  the 
author  puts  the  superb  meeting  at  an  opportune  place, 


94  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

which  is,  on  an  average,  about  350  pages  from  the  dye- 
factory  landscape  at  the  beginning  of  the  book.  He 
ends  the  book  when  he  has  taxed  the  reader's  patience 
and  credulity  to  the  utmost. 

Let  us  go  further  and  see  how  life  has  little  to  do 
with  the  ideals  of  fiction  except  to  inspire  a  swindle 
or  enjoy  a  sacrifice. 

It  is  admitted  that  in  real  life  every  love  affair  ends 
unhappily.  The  very  fact  that  it  always  does  end  con- 
stitutes unhappiness.  If  it  escape  all  other  ills,  it 
ends  in  death.  Few  novel  writers  (that  is,  only  the 
great  ones)  pursue  their  heroes  unto  death.  Bio- 
graphers do  this,  of  course,  and  the  life  of  Alexander 
the  Great  is  none  the  less  interesting  for  the  fact  that 
he  died. 

In  life,  a  man  gets  all  the  peace  and  happiness  he 
can ;  then  loses  it  through  misfortune  or  death.  In 
fiction,  the  hero  first  accumulates  all  the  quarrels  and 
obstacles,  clears  them  and  is  relegated  back  to  noth- 
ingness when  he  has  achieved  a  happy  climax. 

Thus  fiction,  instead  of  portraying  life,  reverses  it 
and  narrates  what  is  not.  Instead  of  teaching  people 
how  an  ideal  character  bears  the  ills  and  frauds  of  the 
opposite  sex,  or  how  the  ordinary  person  rises  to  a 
transient  ideal,  fiction  puts  all  the  odium  in  one  place 
and  rewards  two  honorable  parties  who  do  not  seem 
infected  with  original  sin.  In  fact,  most  heroes  and 
heroines  appear  so  sexless  that  we  wonder  why  they 
marry.  The  hero  is  a  spurious  character;  his  heroism 
is  not  that  of  a  real  man.  The  heroine  is  a  bogus  girl, 
a  matter  of  wordy  prevarication  on  the  part  of  the 
author. 

Life  is  made  up  of  falsehood;  fiction  is  based  upon 
what  would  be  true  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  it  is 
not.  The  demand  for  it  was  created  in  childhood- 
Those  who  still  read  are  still  children. 


THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS  95 

A  man  marries  because  of  a  necessity  combined 
with  an  ideal.  It  is  obvious  that  he  is  untrue  to  his 
wife  because  of  an  ideal  only.  Instead  of  selecting  a 
wife  with  judgment,  he  leaves  her  to  romance.  When 
the  romance  is  gone  from  the  wife,  he  is-  led  else- 
where. He  is  always  looking  for  that  ideal.  He  never 
concludes  that  it  does  not  exist,  but  that  it  was  not 
where  he  thought  it  was. 

A  man  unfaithful  to  his  wife  is  not  misled  by  carnal 
indulgence.  He  has  that  at  home.  He  is  lured  by 
romance  and  the  ideal.  He  may  be  introduced  to  a 
woman  in  a  parlor  and  forget  her.  Meeting  her  in 
picturesque  circumstances,  he  is  under  an  illusion. 
The  lack  of  sordid  details  in  the  scene  immediately  en- 
chant him  with  the  ideals  of  the  book.  His  living 
heart  enguises  itself  with  a  fictitious  heroship.  He 
becomes  part  of  an  extemporaneous  tale,  and  is 
lovingly  infuriated.  He  yearns  for  a  love  that  is 
ideal  and  fleshly  at  once.  Upon  that,  the  other  part 
of  the  world  is  forgotten.  At  home,  he  may  have  to 
deceive  his  wife  concerning  his  absence.  That  is  how 
it  works  out.  One  ideal  proves  false,  and  the  next  has 
to  be  concealed  with  falsehood. 

It  may  be  that  if  all  women's  legs  were  the  same 
shape,  man  would  not  fall  in  love  as  often  as  he  does. 
He  gives  a  psychological  importance  to  the  lines  of 
pulchritude.  He  sees  a  certain  spirituality  in  the 
body-picture  as  well  as  in  the  forehead. 

Fiction  then  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  influential 
part,  a  particularizing  of  ideals.  Ideals  are,  at  ordin- 
ary times,  fiction.  The  woman  that  wants  a  diamond 
ring,  pretends  ideality.  The  priest  that  wishes  to  live 
in  idleness  pretends  ideality.  The  newspaper  that 
would  have  a  circulation  pretends  ideality.  The  re- 
former that  is  looking  to  a  salary  pretends  ideality. 
The  millionaire  and  the  vagabond,  the  exemplars  of 


96  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

every  condition  meet  humanity  on  an  ideal  offer  that 
has  no  force  in  their  daily  life ;  yet  they  manage  to 
impress  a  world  of  suckers  already  seduced  by  the 
ideals  of  fiction. 

The  Astonished  Sucker 

Suckerism  is  not  a  circumstantial  folly  but  an  active 
emotion.  There  is,  in  the  mind  of  the  sucker,  a  sub- 
sidiary trait  that  keeps  him  on  the  alert  for  duty. 
This  trait  makes  common  things  appear  wonderful. 

Ideas  must  have  momentum,  or  else  they  will  not 
go  very  far.  A  certain  initial  impetus  ^sends  them 
through  the  brains  of  mankind.  This  explosion,  or 
sudden  burst  of  recognition,  is  called  astonishment. 
An  invention  or  event  or  person  or  thing,  to  succeed, 
must  firstly  astonish ;  that  is,  it  knocks  all  calmness 
out  of  people's  heads,  and  then  goes  on  a  successful 
career.  For  this  reason,  and  in  anticipation  of  great 
matters,  the  sucker  must  be  trained  to  astonishment. 
When  shown  an  admirable  thing,  he  must  go  into  a 
sort  of  pantomime  denoting  that  he  is  in  alarm  for  the 
preservation  of  his  senses.  This  gives  animation  to 
everyday  life,  and  keeps  alive  that  enthusiasm  which 
is  necessary  to  one  thing  and  another.  Lack  of  it  in- 
dicates a  low  morale. 

Every  exhibition  of  merit  should  be  attended  with 
joy.  The  beauties  of  Nature  should  cause  an  artistic 
soul  to  tremble  in  terror  of  the  superb ;  a  piece  of  hu- 
man finesse  should  set  one  agog  with  oh  .and  ah. 
When  an  infant  is  discovered  with  its  first  tooth,  a 
casual  observer  might  be  moved  to  remark,  Ah  yes ; 
this  is  about  the  time  they  get  'em.  And  yet,  that  the 
onlookers  themselves  have  teeth  is  no  excuse  for  in- 
difference. What  should  they  do?  Ejaculate.  Be 


THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  97 

astonished  that  Nature  did  not  forget  this  babe  (a 
possibility).  Call  wildly  for  others  to  look.  If  there 
be  no  others  about,  call  anyhow,  and  thus  make  as- 
tonishment all  the  more  convincing.  The  parents  un- 
derstand, and  feel  that  they  have  not  had  a  child  for 
nothing.  The  production  of  children  is  encouraged. 

Whether  it  be  an  infant  with  a  tooth,  an  artist  with 
a  picture,  a  singer  with  a  voice,  or  anybody  with  any- 
thing, the  purport  is  to  swoon  with  celestial  wounds, 
and  exclaim,  Well  I  didn't  think  it  was  in  him.  This 
will  not  cause  the  person  to  feel  aggrieved  as  under- 
estimated. He  will  comprehend  that  the  tooth  or  the 
picture  or  the  voice  or  the  anything  is  acknowledged 
to  be  miraculous,  while  the  dumfoundoons  and  shock- 
absorbers  had  previously  considered  him  as  merely 
human,  and  are  now  licking  the  ambrosias  of  the  di- 
vine from  their  lips. 

Of  course,  it  requires  energy  to  go  through  life 
thunderstruck;  yet  this  must  be  done,  or  most  people 
would  feel  themselves  ordinary  and  unfit  for  achieve- 
ment. 

The  astonished  sucker  is  amazed  at  the  poetry  and 
marvel  of  other  people's  business  affairs.  He  becomes 
loose-mouthed  in  the  story  of  another's  pleasures. 
Should  he  read  that  a  wealthy  woman  has  lost  her 
diamonds,  he  will  not  rest  until  they  are  found.  The 
news  of  the  day  bloats  the  wonder-bag  of  his  soul. 
He  would  never  believe  that  it  is  partly  fiction. 

He  will  attend  a  baseball  game  and  become  scarlet 
over  a  pennant  he  has  never  seen.  He  roars  for  the 
home  team,  forgetting  that  it  is  a  home  team  in  name 
only.  He  understands  merely  that  it  is  to  be  made 
noisy,  even  as  he  understands  that  a  bronze  pot  of 
another  century  is  to  be  murmured  over.  If  he  were 
told  to  murmur  soulfully  at  baseball  and  shout  over 
the  bronze  pot,  he  would  do  so. 


98  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

When  a  popular  book  is  being  discussed,  he  will 
collapse  into  unsphinctered  awe  over  the  genius  that 
wrote  it. 

He  delights  in  the  rare  and  the  difficult.  Given  a 
single  hint  that  a  friend  is  in  need  of  praise,  and  he 
comes  up  puffing  for  the  third  time  from  the  drown- 
ing waters  of  admiration. 

This  sucker  has  put  a  romantic  glow  over  all  his- 
tory. The  more  incredible  a  tale  the  readier  was  he 
to  give  it  the  astonishment  that  means  belief,  even 
had  he  to  go  so  far  as  to  testify  to  its  truth.  We  can 
gauge  ancient  heroes  by  measuring  the  celebrities  of 
today.  When  a  man  or  woman  is  so  well  known  that 
any  bit  of  news  concerning  him  or  her  is  easily  gob- 
bled by  the  public,  what  a  temptation  it  is  for  the 
celebrity,  pining  in  a  week  of  obscurity,  to  make  a 
short  remark  that  is  sure  to  grow  into  a  long  story 
before  nightfall.  Or  an  obsequious  friend  enlarges  his 
intimacy  with  a  large  tale  of  the  great  person.  Ene- 
mies can  deny — through  envy ;  the  great  person  can 
deny — through  modesty.  The  falsehood  goes  on.  It 
has  caused  astonishment,  and  there  is  no  cessation. 
The  next  man  is  as  astonished  as  the  first;  more  so, 
perhaps  with  more  cause,  for  each  astonished  sucker 
puts  his  literary  ability  into  the  facts  as  he  gets  them, 
and  the  end  is  never  in  sight. 

In  short,  wherever  genuine  good  will  is  needed,  the 
astonished  suckers  are  there  to  give  it.  They  are  as 
necessary  to  society  as  music  to  a  dance;  as  a  bass 
drum  to  a  political  parade ;  and  their  wonderful  ex- 
clamations fall  in  the  paths  of  Progress  with  the  fer- 
tilizing thump  of  a  bull  signalling  its  approbation  of 
all  Nature  on  a  field  of  summer  fallow. 


THE   WORLD  OF   SUCKERS  99 

The  Sucker  to  Whom  We  Owe  a 
Great  Responsibility 

We  are  all  infants  when  we  talk  to  an  infant.  The 
object  is  to  let  him  grow  up  in  simplicity.  , 

It  was  said  that  a  man  who  tells  the  truth  is  a 
sucker.  In  dealing  with  an  infant,  we  cannot  be  too 
careful  in  removing  from  him  his  natural  tendency  to 
see  things  as  they  are.  At  first  he  makes  many  ex- 
cusable blunders  of  word  and  behavior;  gradually 
these,  ridiculous  and  charming  though  they  be,  should 
be  corrected. 

As  the  little  sucker  puts  his  lips  to  the  mother- 
breast,  he  is,  in  his  helplessness  and  innocence,  the 
only  creature  in  the  world  of  whom  no  one  would  take 
advantage.  Helplessness  and  innocence  have  not 
saved  older  suckers,  and  we  may  put  it  down  that 
the  only  reason  for  not  taking  advantage  of  a  babe, 
is  that  he  has  nothing  that  people  need. 

When  the  mother  withdraws  her  breast  from  the 
infant's  mouth,  and  substitutes  a  black-rubber  nipple 
over  a  bottle  of  animal  or  manufactured  milk,  then  does 
the  little  one  become  a  sucker  in  the  more  social  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  With  the  rubber  nipple  the  tiny, 
squirming  novice  takes  his  position  among  the  insti- 
tutions of  society.  Not  much  harm  is  done ;  it  is  not 
time.  He  begins  easily,  and  takes  his  first  delusion 
and  imitation. 

As  soon  as  this  little  fool  begins  to  understand  and 
talk,  he  should  be  taught  how  to  exclude  the  truth 
from  his  conversation.  Assuming  that  the  parents  are 
suckers  and  useful  members  of  society,  they  should 
point  him  the  perils  and  evils  of  thinking  for  him- 
self, lest  he  grow  up  a  cynic,  a  critic  and  an  iconoclast. 
Living  in  civilization  as  we  do,  the  infant's  brain 


100  THE    WORLD   OF    SUCKERS 

should  not  be  allowed  to  develop  wilfully  as  that  of  a 
savage.  Heredity  is  strong,  yet  environment  should 
nurse  the  young  mind  as  early  as  possible.  The  child 
belongs  to  the  eooch  in  which  he  lives.  The  epoch 
protects  him,  and,  in  return,  has  the  right  to  his  ser- 
vices. His  mind  should  be  filled  with  its  principles, 
so  that  at  boyhood  the  young  soul  be  converted  and 
colored  with  all  the  enthralling  dreams  and  ghosts 
of  popular  belief.  These  being  at  the  very  making  of 
him,  he  will  hardly  be  able  to  subdue  them  later.  If 
he  should  free  himself,  he  is  one  in  a  generation ; 
and  so  much  the  better,  for  it  is  more  creditable  to 
free  oneself  than  be  born  free.  The  majority  of  chil- 
dren can  never  grow  to  achieve  distinction.  They 
must  be  workers.  To  fill  them  with  ambition  would 
be  only  to  sadden  their  lives.  Rightly  are  they  in- 
structed with  so  many  deceptions  that  the  only  thing 
of  which  they  are  not  ashamed  is  the  ideal,  or  that 
which  they  are  not. 

Civilization  considers  it  ill  that  a  man  take  pride 
in  what  he  actually  is.  If  he  be  ruggedly  and  na- 
tively proud,  he  would  not  take  part  in  the  devotions 
of  his  kind,  but  have  only  his  innate  love  of  mystery 
as  a  motive  for  aspiring  to  something  better. 

Howbeit,  the  infant  with  his  nursing-bottle,  sym- 
bolically performing  the  mental  mischance  that  is  to 
characterize  him  through  life,  sucks  the  milk  of  his 
first  deception.  If  an  angel  should  whisper  to  him 
then,  what  would  be  the  tale?  What  wisdom  would 
the  infant  have  to  relate  unto  his  elders?  What 
startling  and  uncalled-for  truths  then  out  of  the 
mouths  of  babes  and  suckers !  The  tale  would  need 
expurgation,  no  doubt. 

The  thought  is  suggestive.  It  leads  one  into  the 
subject  of  propriety.  The  upshot  of  which  is  that  the 
first  thing  a  child  must  be  taught  is  to  be  ashamed  of 


101 


himself.  Untaught  to  that  extent,  he  would  not  be 
tolerated  anywhere.  Parents  are  usually  much  con- 
cerned as  to  just  how  much  they  should  inform  a 
child  of  his  person  and  the  natural  causes  of  his  being 
alive. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  a  child  does  not  know 
what  he  is,  nor  what  he  is  to  expect  in  after  years. 
But  it  is  a  fact  that  he  gets  two  contrary  ideas:  from 
his  playmates,  distorted  and  ignorant  rumors  of  pleas- 
ure ;  from  his  instructors,  restriction.  These  confuse 
himv  He  sees  no  pleasure  in  restriction,  and  he  does 
behind  his  parents'  backs  what  Adam  and  Eve,  poor 
children  without  knowledge  of  ethics,  did  when  God 
was  out  of  their  sight. 

It  would  be  an  awful  subterfuge  upon  a  child  to  way- 
lay his  curiosity  by  opening  all  the  bureaus  of  in- 
formation to  his  inquiring  mind.  He  would  then  have 
nothing  to  vex  him  in  his  quest  of  primitive  science. 
There  would  be  nothing  to  restrict  him  beside  a  re- 
spect for  the  rights  of  others;  which  would  keep  his 
bit  of  humanity  quite  alert  morally.  Eve  and  Blue- 
beard's wife  were  in  the  same  predicament  as  this 
child  ;  one  touch  upon  their  curiosity,  and  both  re- 
quired a  Saviour.  The  child's  curiosity,  perhaps  the 
strongest  of  his  faculties,  is  liable  to  wander  near 
the  same  pitfall.  In  this  hole  there  is  seemingly  some- 
thing that  he  should  not  see.  If  it  were  provided  with 
a  stairs  instead  of  a  snare,  he  would  walk  down  and 
not  fall.  If  this  were  done,  perhaps  instead  of  expur- 
gating the  classics,  we  should  have  cause  to  expurgate 
only  the  Penal  Code. 

Such  a  course  would  be  a  loss  to  the  world.  For, 
assuming  that  there  would  be  less  crime  if  the  child 
were  not  predisposed  to  it  by  the  taunts  to  his  curi- 
osity, much  of  the  mysteries  of  love  would  be  gone. 
It  is  necessary  to  the  exquisite  adventures  of  love  that 


102  THE   lV0&Li3   OF 


mystery  surround  it.  If  all  should  be,  from  childhood, 
plain  as  eating  carrots,  and  nothing  improper  in  con- 
versation, there  would  be  no  beautiful  haze  over  car- 
nal fact,  no  poetic  illusion  in  language,  no  twinkling 
magic  in  a  lover's  night. 


An  Ordinary  Day  in  the  Life  of  a 
Sucker 

The  majority  own  the  world;  that  is  why  they  pay 
rent.  The  voice  of  the  people,  which  is  said  to  be  the 
voice  of  God,  is  raised  in  everlasting  protest.  When 
property  is  taken  away  from  a  man  by  superior  force, 
he  is  still  a  man ;  when  it  is  taken  away  by  argument 
he  is  a  sucker.  One  could  give  good  argument  why 
the  people  who  live  on  this  earth  should  not  each  have 
a  section  of  it.  The  best  point  is  that,  should  each  in- 
dividual be  given  a  share  of  earth,  and  be  selfish 
enough  to  take  it,  the  prosperity  of  the  united  system 
would  suffer. 

When  the  sucker  awakes  in  the  morning,  he  is  one 
day  nearer  the  payment  of  rent.  He  lives  on  land 
owned  by  somebody  else.  If  the  landlord  had  not 
been  allowed  to  acquire  more  property  than  was  ne- 
cessary for  his  home  and  business,  it  could  have  been 
divided  among  the  suckers.  But,  while  this  would 
have  benefited  the  sucker,  it  would  have  made  the  ci- 
ties larger  and  inconvenient  and  less  sightly.  For 
each  sucker  would  have  built  a  small  house  to  suit  his 
own  needs.  A  large  city  must  be  compact;  hence 
the  land-holders  build  tenements.  A  large  city  must 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  rich. 

The  poor  cannot  benefit  their  country  except  by  the 


THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  103 

surrender  of  their  rights.  The  poor  cannot  collabor- 
ate to  advantage.  For  instance,  in  order  to  develop 
a  country,  five  men  can  construct  a  railroad;  a  thou- 
sand men  could  not.  Five  men  have  more  executive 
ability  than  a  thousand.  Ten  million  men  have  no 
executiveness  at  all.  The  suckers  then  could  not  lay 
a  railroad.  They  can  only  perform  the  hard  work 
and  pay  the  fare.  They  develop  the  country.  Why 
they  do  so,  or  why  the  country  should  be  developed, 
is  not  a  subject  for  discussion  here.  The  virtue  of  it 
was  assumed  at  the  outset  herein.  At  any  rate,  the 
sucker  is  the  only  patriot.  He  loves  his  country, 
because  he  gives  his  all  to  it.  But  his  country  does 
not  love  him.  Nobody  loves  a  sucker  in  his  official 
capacity. 

Truth  to  say,  money  and  land  do  not  bring  happi- 
ness to  a  country  any  more  than  to  a  person.  The 
larger  a  country,  the  more  is  the  patriotism  divided. 
Sometimes  the  sucker  who  pays  a  large  rent  for  a 
pygmy's  home  in  a  tenement  can  hardly  enjoy  having 
contributed  to  the  support  of  a  railroad,  when  an 
elevator  would  be  more  to  his  purpose. 

When  the  sucker  has  washed  himself  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  sits  to  a  breakfast  of  impure  food.  Dwelling 
in  a  city,  he  cannot  have  all  his  food  fresh  from  the 
markets,  but  buys  things  that  are  grown  at  such  a 
progressive  distance  that  they  must  come  to  him  in 
cans  and  packages,  as  not  to  become  stale.  It  is 
sweetened  with  by-products  and  preserved  with  chem- 
icals. Occasionally  the  sucker,  angered  at  these  adul- 
terants in  his  necessaries,  attempts  a  clearing.  Rather, 
some  well-meaning  official  attempts  for  him.  A  law 
is  passed  that  packages  of  food  be  labeled  with  their 
every  ingredient.  The  manufacturers  are  puzzled  for 
a  while,  until  they  recall  the  sucker's  characteristics. 
They  need  not  better  their  product;  they  merely 


104  THE    WORLD   OF   SUCKERS 

change  the  labels  in  conformity  with  the  law,  print- 
ing the  names  of  the  chemicals  in  the  food.  The 
sucker  buys  the  medicated  goods  with  the  amusing 
labels.  He  has  not  the  courage  to  refuse. 

All  the  sucker's  food,  clothing  and  articles  of  daily 
use  are  extensively  advertised.  The  impression  seems 
to  be  that  unless  his  food  be  advertised,  the  sucker 
would  not  eat.  He  pays  millions  of  dollars  annually  to 
be  induced  to  partake  of  the  necessaries  of  life. 

After  breakfast,  the  sucker  rides  downtown  in  a 
street  car.  He  cannot  afford  to  live  near  his  place  of 
business.  He  gave  the  street  to  a  corporation,  being 
unable  to  operate  the  railway  himself,  not  having  the 
brains  nor  the  money.  The  corporation  got  the  money 
from  him,  and  tells  him  he  has  not  the  brains.  So 
the  sucker  keeps  his  hands  off. 

It  is  generally  said  that  the  sucker  works  with 
either  brain  or  brawn.  Not  entirely.  He  works  with 
his  soul.  If  he  is  a  laborer,  he  is  inwardly  cursing  his 
job  most  of  the  time;  and  most  of  his  accompanying 
speech  is  a  disgruntled  comment  on  what  he  is  do- 
ing. Laborer  or  clerk,  he  is  dreaming  of  happiness; 
he  tosses  up  tempting  visions  with  every  spade  or 
penful.  Some  do  not.  They  have  been  hypnotized 
into  the  belief  that  their  minds  must  be  intent  on  the 
work,  and  that  appreciation  will  then  follow.  These 
men  can  hardly  be  called  suckers  of  a  long  deceit; 
they  are  sword-swallowers.  During  the  day  they  will 
not  converse  with  their  fellow-workman.  The  pro- 
prietor of  their  establishment  frowns  on  such  friend- 
liness. His  employees  are  there  for  business  not 
friendship.  So  the  weak-souled  clerk  drudges  through 
the  day,  talking  only  on  business,  fearful  of  being 
caught  with  a  congenial  word  on  his  lips  or  a  smile 
on  his  busy  features.  He  is  stimulated  with  the  pre- 


THE    WORLD   OP   SUCKERS  105 

cept  that  energy  and  attention  will  bring  their  reward. 
He  hopes  for  promotion. 

These  men  are  playing  the  most  terrific  game  that 
ever  was :  the  tragedy  of  numbers.  The  hero  of  a 
tragedy  usually  dies  fighting;  and  so  here.  One  man 
in  a  community  may  succeed  by  industry  and  merit. 
Fancy  the  confusion  of  a  million  endeavoring  to  get 
near  the  top  on  that  basis,  or  any  basis.  .  Whatever 
the  chances  of  success  held  out  by  the  preachers,  it 
cannot  apply  to  all.  One  succeeds  because  the  others 
did  not  follow  the  advice,  or  were  unable  to  keep  up 
the  follow.  The  high  places  are  for  a  few;  the  low 
places  must  become  more  populous  all  the  time.  That 
is  the  tragedy  of  numbers. 

The  adviser  states  that  the  chances  for  success  are 
greater  now  than  ever;  that  is,  the  filling  in  of  the  in- 
dustries enlarges  the  accomodations.  The  clerks  are 
advised  to  be  honest,  methodical,  and  to  have  their 
employer's  interest  at  heart.  Let  us  see.  Suppose  a 
corooration  employ  a  thousand  men,  honest,  method- 
ical and  interested.  The  corporation  cannot  prefer 
and  reward  them  all ;  yet  it  does  not  harm  the  corpora- 
tion to  have  them  all  trying  for  the  reward  and  pref- 
erence. 

Theoretically,  every  individual  ou^ht  to  try;  but 
theoretically  a  large  majority  ought  not  try,  for  suc- 
cess to  it  impossible. 

A  thousand  people  could  support  themselves  by 
working  four  hours  a  day,  and  have  many  holidays.  It 
is  ambition's  promise  of  more  than  a  natural  emolu- 
ment that  steadies  them  to  work  for  nine  hours.  With 
everybody  working  for  more  than  an  ordinary  liveli- 
hood, and  many  getting  less,  there  must  be  an  awful 
gulf  of  misery  and  a  crush  in  some  part  of  the  system 
But  not  one  of  them  could  be  persuaded  that  he  is. 
not  destined  to  be  one  of  the  crushers. 


106  THE   WORLD   OP   SUCKERS 

Some  writers  mention  class  distinctions;  and  re- 
cently there  has  been  a  widespread  assumption  that 
the  millionaire  is  less  honest  than  the  workingman. 
This  is  error.  If  the  workingman  were  not  dishonest, 
the  millionaires  could  not  be.  Millionaires  are  the  out- 
come of  dishonest  conditions,  which  arise  from  dishon- 
est humanity.  The  workman  who  can  talk  sincerely 
to  himself  will  gaze  at  his  oppressor  and  say,  There, 
but  for  the  grace  of  something  I  could  not  help,  goes 
myself.  I  am  that  man  in  the  mansion.  If  I  were 
he  and  he  were  I,  the  angels  could  see  no  difference. 

The  workingman  must  work;  but  why  more  than 
is  necessary  for  his  family's  food  and  shelter?  He  is 
already  a  sucker  to  that  extent — a  hard-working 
sucker  paying  off  the  romantic  debt  of  his  youth.  But 
why  must  he  earn  even  more  than  he  is  paid?  It  is 
because  he  hopes  to  be  paid  at  some  time  more  than 
he  shall  earn.  It  is  his  hope  to  get  something  for 
nothing,  eventually,  that  makes  him  now  give  his 
all — body,  brain  and  soul.  He  is  not  a  sucker  indi- 
vidually for  trying;  as  part  of  the  inevitable  aggre- 
gate failure,  he  is  a  sucker.  There  is  no  way  out  of 
it ;  the  majority  cannot  free  themselves  from  the  trag- 
edy of  numbers.  And  were  it  not  for  religion,  that 
promises  better  times  beyond  the  tomb,  the  case  of 
the  majority  would  be  sad  indeed.  And  the  more  in- 
telligent it  might  become,  the  sadder  would  be  the 
tragedy  of  its  life. 

A  philosopher  might  be  content  to  work  hard,  sell- 
ing his  philosophy,  or  doing  something  equally  hon- 
orable, yet  would  dislike  being  ordered  about  by  a 
speculator  who  calls  himself  an  aristocrat  because  he 
adds  money  with  his  brain.  The  great  consideration, 
then,  is  freedom.  This  the  majority  of  men  can  never 
have.  And  the  less  they  are  able  to  appreciate  free- 
dom, the  better  for  their  souls. 


THE   WORLD  OF   SUCKERS  107 

But  what  is  an  ordinary  day  in  the  life  of  a  wealthy 
sucker  himself?  He  has  freedom.  It  means  nothing 
to  him.  Freedom  is  nothing;  lack  of  it,  as  lack  of 
air,  is  unpleasant.  People  continuously  in  fresh  air 
and  freedom  do  not  pay  much  attention  to  it. 

The  rich  man  has  many  many  times  one  livelihood. 
Unfortunately,  he  can  use  only  one.  Or  say  that  he 
may  overeat  himself  and  use  somewhat  more  than  one 
livelihood.  All  the  rest  becomes  a  game.  Clothes, 
carriages,  houses,  pictures,  jewels,  fortune.  They  are 
nothing  more  than  an  exciting  game,  the  excitement 
of  much  of  it  being  lost  after  the  things  are  won.  He 
can  be  in  but  one  place  at  a  time;  the  one  place  be- 
comes tiresome.  And  then  change  becomes  tiresome. 
He  has  nothing  but  the  game  of  his  fortune ;  and  as 
there  are  many  as  fortunate  as  he,  and  more,  he  is 
playing  a  losing  game  most  of  the  time.  Those  few 
yearly  millions  he  subtracts  from  the  poor!  They  do 
not  amount  to  much.  Every  day  he  is  disgraced  by 
wealthier  men. 

This  is,  of  course,  not  saying  that  his  position  is 
not  better  than  the  workingman's.  It  might  be,  in 
some  respects  and  not  in  others.  A  man  with  wife  and 
child  and  $5000  might  take  a  vacation  for  a  year.  A 
wealthy  man  would  not  dare  to.  He  works  under  the 
terrible  nightmare  that  the  loss  of  a  few  million  dol- 
lars would  make  him  unhappy.  But  that  does  not 
amount  of  much.  The  point  is  that  wealth  plays 
everybody  for  suckers — its  owners  included.  The 
game  of  wealth  is  as  disappointing  as  that  of  life.  No 
one  ever  wins. 

After  his  day's  work,  the  sucker  eats  dinner.  Then 
he  may  go  to  the  theater  and  see  himself  on  the  stage. 
In  comedy  and  tragedy  he  sees  himself.  In  drama  he 
sees  what  is  not.  He  would  rather  laugh  than  behold 
his  tears  theatrically  illumined.  The  curtain  rises. 


108  THE   WORLD  OF   SUCKERS 

The  audience  beholds  its  multitudinous  and  incarnate 
souls  intermingling  in  bright  satins  and  dark  attire 
beyond  the  footlights.  It  is  the  only  illusion  worth 
anything.  It  is  a  sublime  falsehood,  a  comic  nothing, 
a  tragic  truth,  a  melodramatic  school  for  suckers. 

The  Sucker's  Holiday 

During  what  he  is  pleased  to  term  Sundays  and 
Holidays,  the  sucker  catches  his  breath,  after  the  ex- 
citing week.  He  sleeps  later,  eats  more,  may  give 
presents,  and,  for  a  few  hours  takes  on  a  genial  man- 
ner, for  which  he  has  had  no  time  during  the  week  or 
months  past.  Also  he  atones  for  his  sins. 

The  superb  holiday  of  the  sucker,  and  most  charac- 
teristically his  own,  is  the  ist  of  April,  otherwise 
known  as  All  Fools'  Day  or  April  Fool.  On  this  day 
the  sucker,  in  sportive  revenge  for  the  indignities  put 
upon  him  during  the  year,  tempts  his  fellows  with 
many  pranks.  This  is  a  pleasure  of  the  imagination, 
or  a  delusion,  in  which  the  sucker  raises  himself  to 
the  pomp  of  a  laughing  swindler  by  making  others 
act  foolishily.  The  sucker  plays  aristocrat  as  a  child 
plays  pirate. 

For  example,  in  token  and  remembrance  of  the  im- 
pure food  sold  him  during  the  year,  the  sucker  buys 
candy  which  is  filled  with  cayenne  pepper  or  wood. 
This  he  foists  upon  a  friend,  and  his  mouth  joculates 
widely  at  the  ensuing  discomfiture.  Having  done  this 
the  sucker  has  proven  to  himself  that  he  is  not  such 
a  fool  after  all,  for  he  is  yet  sharp  enough  to  transact 
a  practical  joke  on  others. 

On  the  back  of  another,  he  pins  a  card  bearing  the 
words,  "Kick  me."  The  reversed  applicability  of  this 
trick  is  almost  as  bad  as  jesting  with  death. 


THE   WORLD   OF   SUCKERS  10S 

With  another,  he  makes  an  apparently  losing  bet 
with  the  proviso,  "You  will  pay  if  you  win/'  And 
takes  the  stakes  feeling  that  he  is  recompensed  for  a 
whole  year  of  financial  innocence. 

He  conceals  a  brick  beneath  an  old  hat  on  the  side- 
walk. This  is  the  symbolic  farce  of  a  lifetime.  The 
sucker  that  kicks  the  hat  and  stubs  his  howling  toe 
exemplifies  all  the  details  of  suckerism :  the  supercil- 
ious approach,  the  sentiment  of  doing  a  heroic  act, 
the  greed  of  achieving  an  illustrious  kick,  and  then 
the  sudden  pain.  Observing  a  person  play  the  sucker 
to  such  a  snare  arouses  the  latent  manhood  and  jo- 
cosity of  the  bystanders. 

At  night  the  trickful  sucker  relates  to  his  family 
his  acumen  of  the  day,  deluding  others  and  himself 
escaping.  "Wasn't  fooled  once,"  he  says.  "Saw  all 
those  tricks  played  years  ago,  and  was  on  to  them." 
His  own  exploits  he  narrates  with  hilaritiy  and  ego- 
tism, goes  to  bed  happy  and  giggles  in  his  sleep. 


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